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Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 13, 2006
Introduction: China's leaders use religion to ease social tensions and improve image
It's a curious role for an officially atheistic Communist regime: Protector of global Buddhism.
Yet China is seeking that distinction as host of an international Buddhist conference this week, an outgrowth of its increasing use of people-to-people diplomacy and its newfound willingness to harness traditional beliefs to ease social tensions at home. The gathering can "help overcome questions about China's rise and destroy the absurd 'China threat theory'," Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, told the forum organisers.
About 300 monks, nuns and scholars from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and a score of other countries are expected to attend the five-day World Buddhist Forum that begins on Thursday in Hangzhou. The gathering illustrates how China has increasingly sought to use religion, culture, sports and business to build its influence abroad and soften foreign criticism of its human rights record.
"China has been pursuing soft power very actively in recent years," said Joseph Cheng, chairman of the City University of Hong Kong's Contemporary China Research Centre.
"In the leadership's view, Buddhism can be exploited as part of their quest to build the perception of China's peaceful rise," Cheng said.
The World Buddhist Forum also underscores the regime's new friendliness toward Buddhism after having relentlessly attacked it and all religions over the first decades of communist rule. The forum's slogan, "A harmonious world begins in the mind," helps explain why. It echoes an ongoing communist campaign to build a "harmonious society" a vague prescription for easing simmering discontent.
However, Cheng said Buddhism and Confucianism have been favoured because, unlike Christianity, they are seen as essentially homegrown and not threatening to authority. "China has accepted the lesser of two evils--traditional religions without foreign connections and with an emphasis on social harmony but not social activism," Cheng said.
For Buddhists, the benefits include more international contacts and the rebuilding of hundreds of temples destroyed during the various political campaigns. Yet the new tolerance still has limits.
"China's leaders want the benefits of religion, but are still very reluctant to see religious groups playing a larger role in society," Cheng said.
AP
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