Yes this is indeed still happening in "modern China" . Some Catholics that seem to chaff at the authority of the Roman See should pause for a second and read this story from Vatican Insider China: Mgr. Ma Daqin arrested and stripped of bishop title .
As Prof Rick Garnett noted a while back on this situation in 2010 which just shows how the the situation continues to worsen:
As I have suggested before, I think it is important to think of this "tighten[ing]" as not merely affecting, or being directed at, "bishops", but at the Church -- all of us. .......
......I realize, of course, that for many Catholics in America, there is a tendency / temptation (in some cases, an understandable one) to separate mentally "our Church" (i.e., where we choose to worship and where we find faith-community) from "the Church" (the "institutional church", "the hierarchy", "the Vatican", etc.) In my view, this tendency is a worrisome one. But, in any event, focusing for now only on the situation in China, I would hope that all Catholics -- however close to the front of their faith-mind is the connection between "being Catholic" and "being in communion with the bishop" -- would see clearly, and recoil from, the grave threat to religious liberty that is involved when one of the world's most powerful and authoritarian states kidnaps bishops and coerces them to validate through their presence that state's effort to control the Church.
Regardless this is worrisome and it does seems traditional powers such as the United States and the UK to name just two should be more aggressive on this topic.
I would suggest that during the upcoming confirmation hearing for the new envoy to the Holy See it might be good if a few Senators perhaps use that opportunity to open this subject up a tad.
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