Iirc, before 2018 the Chinese goverment would refuse to recognize some priests or bishops as officials even if the Pope had selected them. The relation between the PRC and the Vatican was ok, better than the Soviets and the Vatican, but this was a huge problem for them.

In 2018 Francis made a deal with them, I think Xi wanted to approach the Catholic Church due to the slow but big growth of the Church in Asia, and because they probably wants to get closer with LatAm and Africa. Francis (The Pope) would choose the priests, but the Chinese goverment/CPC would have to approve them, some TradCath and Anti-China Catholics are angry bc they hate Francis (mostly bc he purged some tradcatholics and kicked some out of the church, and he is in friendly terms with some socdem and communist goverments in LatAm), and bc Francis have been mostly choosing normal Catholic priests and bishops, instead of anti-China ones.