Globalizing Chinese Buddhism: State Strategies and Modalities of Religion

Globalizing Chinese Buddhism: State Strategies and Modalities of Religion By Yoshiko Ashiwa Professor of Anthropology and Global Issues Hitosubashi University [email protected] David L. Wank Professor of Sociology and Global Studies Sophia University [email protected] Paper for presentation at International Studies Association Annual Meeting, April 6-9 2021 Panel: “Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power: Theories and Cases” Draft version for presentation only. Do not cite or circulate without authors’ permission. Abstract Since coming to power in 1949, the the Communist Party of CHina (CPC) has developed a state system for controlling religoin and using it to promote CPC aims. Since the rise to power of Xi Jinping in 2012, the system has been repurposed to support CPC aspirations for China to be recognzied as a great power. One of its activites is the global promotion of Buddhism as religion and culture. This essay has five sections. First, is a survey of the origins and development of the state system of religious control since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Second, is an overview of state’s international uses of Buddhism to further Chinese interests from the 1950s to the 2010s. Third, is an examination of the commitment in 2015 by PRC Buddhist establishment to globally promote Buddhism. Fourth, it is an overview of the modalities of Buddhism and their promotion around the world. Fifth, is an examination of the promotion as the local activities of a prominent monk. The conclusion considers the historical particularity of this promotion of national modalities of Chinese Buddhism as a universal religion and global culture. Since Xi Jinping became leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2012, the Chinese state has stepped up its global promotion of Chinese Buddhism. The aim is not to spread belief in Buddhism as religion but rather to further the aspiration of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for China to be recognized as a country that has inherited a civilization in the modern world. This aspiration is expressed in the “China Dream,” Xi’s vision of China regaining the glory of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the time when Buddhism from India was Sinicized into Chinese culture and flourished. Buddhism is also part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that aspires to reconnected China to Europe via trade routes through central Asia and the Indian Ocean. The routes overlap with the historical passage of Buddhism from India to China, but now is the time to spread Buddhism from China to Asian countries and beyond. Thus, the global promotion reflects a view that the rise of China as an economic and political power needs to be accompanied by culture and religion. The key claim of this essay is that the Chinese state’s global promotion of Buddhism operates as both soft power and sharp power.1 Xi considers Buddhism to be a key element of traditional Chinese culture, and, among China’s deepest cultural soft power. Since taking office he has advocated using Buddhism to explain to the world that the “rise of China” is peaceful and spreading “excellent” Chinese culture to contribute to 1 Christopher Walker, “What is ‘sharp power’?,” Journal of Democracy 29, no. 3 (2018): 9-23. 2 the world peace and prosperity.2 However, we see the state promotion as operating as sharp power because it proceeds through the state system that uses religion to further the CPC’s political aims domestically and internationally.3 This system, created after the founding of the PRC in 1949, has been repurposed by Xi to use Chinese religion and culture, especially Buddhism, for the CPC’s aspiration for China to be seen as a great power. It does by creating and controlling relationships and discourses in ways that further Chinese geopolitical and economic interests. We see this global promotion of Buddhism by the Chinese state as analogous to the historical rise of European global power accompanied by Christianity. This essay has five sections. First, is a survey of the origins and development of the state system of religious control since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Second, is an overview of state’s international uses of Buddhism to further Chinese interests from the 1950s to the 2010s. Third, is an examination of the commitment in 2015 by PRC Buddhist establishment to globally promote Buddhism. Fourth, it is an overview of the modalities of Buddhism and their promotion around the world. Fifth, is an examination of the promotion as seen in the local activities of a prominent monk. The last two sections are an ongoing inquiry and, perforce, exploratory.4 It is instructive to point out that the PRC is the world’s largest Buddhist country. It contains all three Buddhist traditions: Mahayana Buddhism practiced by Han Chinese, 2 CITE 3 This analysis and insights expressed in this brief draw from an ongoing research project and are, perforce, tentative. In particular the insights of the fourth and fifth section are based only preliminary fieldwork and should be considered hypothetical. 4 The project is “Chinese Buddhism in Globalization: States, Communities, and the Practice of Religion” funded by the Henry Luce Foundation Program on Religion in International Affairs. 3 Theravada Buddhism practiced by the Dai people, and Vajrayana Buddhism practiced by Tibetans and Mongolians. Although Buddhism, as well as other religions were, were severely suppressed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), it has since recovered. By 2012, there were thirty-three thousand Buddhist temples, 240,000 clerics, and thirty- eight Buddhist seminaries.5 Now, hundreds of millions of Chinese visit Buddhist temples as a custom to pray to the Buddha, bodhisattvas and other deities for health and fortune, although few have taken vows as Buddhist devotees. The State Religious System Despite being an atheist political party that its proscribes members from believing in them the CPC has recognized the existence of five religions—Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism—in the PRC. The original rationale, articulated in the 1950s, was that suppressing religion would be too divisive among the popular and detract from more pressing economic and political needs of building a strong socialist country. However, the CPC averred that the complexity of religion, intertwined with class issues and the threat of foreign control, necessitated a state system of religious control of manage religion and ensure that its practioners worked for the benefit of the country. The state system founded in the 1950s consists of elements that predate the founding of the PRC in 1949. The concept of “religious freedom” in the PRC has roots in the debates over the drafting of the national constitution in the Republic of China, 5 Ji Zhe et al (eds.), Buddhism After Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions, (University of Hawai’i Press, 2019). 4 established in 1912 as the first modern Chinese state.6 The global propagation of nationally defined forms of Chinese Buddhism as universal values and ethics was foreshadowed from the 1920s by Ven. Taixu 太虛, a famous advocate for the modern reform of Chinese Buddhism.7 The system operates through the CPC’s united front practices first devised in the 1930s to identify and coopt influential persons in non-CPC groups to work for CPC aims.8 Thus, the system builds on stream of modern state formation, the modern reform movement of Buddhism, and CPC experience in the revolutionary civil war and Anti-Japanese War in the first half of the twentieth century.9 After its founding the PRC has recognized the existence of religions within a state system of institutions and organizations that mobilizes them to work for CPC goals.10 The system was founded in the early 1950s. Its key institution is patriotic religion, expressed in the slogan "love country, love religion."11 This basically means that clerics must obey the CPC and work for its goals. Another institution is the constitutional right of "religious freedom." It protects the "religious belief" of individuals but not collective practices. Religious rituals and teachings are only allowed if they are “normal” and are conducted 6 Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank (eds.), Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (Stanford University Press, 2009) 7 Don A. Pittman, Taixu’s Reforms: Towards a Modern Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press, 2001). 8 Lyman Van Slyke, “The United Front in China,” Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 3 (1970): 119-135. 9 Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank, Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). 10 The exception is during the Cultural Revolution when the state encouraged the suppression of religion. 11 After the Cultural Revolution, the foundational document of Chinese religious policy is “Document 19: The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist” Period, (CPC Central Committee, 1982), https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2011/KSCB023/um/24029748/Document_no._19_1982.pdf 5 within the confines of religious activity sites, namely temples, churches, and mosques authorized by the state. Foreign religious organizations cannot operate inside the PRC to prevent foreign domination of Chinese religions. The state system of administrative control of religion was formally established in the 1950s. It has three national actors, each with central, provincial, and local offices. The most powerful is the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an organ of the CPC that supervises the other two actors. The UFWD was established in 1943 to manage CPC relations with non-party groups, including religion. It develops the CPC’s ideological position towards these groups and coopts friendly groups' elites while isolating enemies.

Load more