Jayadeva Ranade Last Updated : 11 May 2012 12:16:34 AM IST
China’s attempts to play Buddhist politics and further its strategic
agenda, by concurrently organising two international conferences last
month in Lumbini in Nepal and Hong Kong both failed. They also
revealed a schism within the CCP’s United Front Work Department
(UFWD).
Important factors contributing to this setback are the CCP’s apparent
unwillingness to address the growing incidence of self-immolations
among Tibetan Buddhists; inability to calm restiveness in Tibet and
Tibetan-populated areas in China; and the policy of consistently
excluding the Dalai Lama. Reports filtering out of Beijing cite
factional in-fighting within the UFWD, which handles all matters
relating to China’s non-communist entities and ethnic minorities,
including Tibet and the Dalai Lama, as a concern.
Beijing for the first time planned to demonstrate its influence in
Nepal by organising an international convention in Buddha’s
birth-place of Lumbini between April 27-30. China first exhibited
interest in Lumbini in June 2011, when the Asia Pacific Exchange and
Cooperation Foundation (APECF), a Chinese government-sponsored NGO,
proposed a $3 billion plan for its development. Lumbini’s inhabitants
protested at not being consulted and the plan was dropped.
The composition of APECF’s board hints strongly at links with the CCP
and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Xiao Wunan, a senior CCP cadre
is the executive vice president of APECF. He envisages the proposed
university in Lumbini as rivalling that planned at Nalanda. The
Foundation’s executive director Eric Tay, graduated in 1993 from
China’s Air Force Institute of Engineering. Nepal’s pro-Beijing Maoist
leader Prachanda, is the vice chairman of APECF.
Though the Nepalese government did not approve APECF’s proposal, its
unwillingness to discard China’s proposal was indicated when it
constituted the Greater Lumbini National Development Directive
Committee (GLNDDC) under the chairmanship of Pushpa Kamal Dahal,
better known by his nom de guerre ‘Prachanda’. The GLNDDC initiated
plans for this three day ‘international’ event in Lumbini in late
April.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s visit was to be the highlight and
he was to co-chair a conference on Lumbini with UCPN-Maoist chairman
Pushpa Kamal Dahal. China’s agenda was evident in the exclusion of the
Dalai Lama from this essentially Buddhist event. It was reinforced by
the comment of a GLNDDC member, that the Dalai Lama could visit after
“the leadership of China will find ways to deal with His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, which will be respectful of the Chinese people”. Ban
Ki-moon’s decision to visit Lumbini, later dropped, attracted
widespread media criticism in Nepal.
While it hints strongly at China’s influence, Xiao Wunan played a key
role. He used his wide network of contacts in South Korea to revive
the Lumbini proposal. In October, an APECF co-chairman and retired
Australian ambassador to South Korea with interests in mining in
China, was requested to facilitate a meeting with Ban Ki-moon in
Australia to discuss re-floating of the Lumbini project. That Ban
Ki-moon and his mother are devout Buddhists would have helped. Prime
Minister Baburam Bhattarai followed up Xiao Wunan’s efforts with an
official invitation to Ban Ki-moon on March 16.
Despite Xiao Wunan’s efforts the events in Lumbini failed to
materialise. Reports additionally suggest that differences exist
within the UFWD, with one group siding with the military and security
establishment that favours a firmer governmental grip over Nepal
rather than pushing this ‘soft power’.
Beijing’s other major initiative was the third World Buddhist Forum
from April 25-27, in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
(HKSAR). Its objective continues to be to obtain legitimacy and
support of the domestic and global Buddhist community and enhance
tacit recognition of the Chinese-selected Panchen Lama. The latter
assumes significance following the Dalai Lama’s assertion last
September that Beijing has no legitimacy in such selections. The
forums are additionally intended to project China’s global leadership
of Buddhists.
While China’s official media publicised that over a thousand religious
personages and leading scholars from 50 countries attended, but the
absence of prominent religious leaders considerably muted the event’s
impact. The supreme religious patriarchs and prominent delegates from
Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Bhutan, Mongolia, Russia and Japan did not attend despite the close
government level relations between China and these countries.
Zhu Weiqun, deputy head of the CCP CC’s UFWD, and Wang Zuo’an,
director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) both
attended. In his first public appearance outside mainland China, the
Chinese-appointed 11th Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, delivered a
keynote speech on the Buddha Dharma.
Intriguingly, among the greetings messages received by the forum was
one from Ban Ki-moon. He said the forum’s proposals would be “helpful
for the work of the UN in the fields of peace, development and human
rights”.
The Dalai Lama’s avowed critics, Akong Tulku of Samyeling Monastery,
Scotland and Gangchen Lama, founder of the LG World Peace Foundation,
Italy and worshipper of the Shugden Deity, attended. Many who attended
the 60th anniversary celebrations of the ‘peaceful’ liberation of
Tibet last year were, however, absent.
A dozen persons from India attended including Ven Dhammaviryo, a
critic of the Dalai Lama. Rather surprisingly, Ravindra Panth,
director of the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara (Deemed University), India,
sent a congratulatory message.
Importantly, the third World Buddhist Forum revealed factionalism
inside the CCP’s United Front establishment, which was triggered by
the APECF’s bid to take charge. Xiao Wunan’s APECF established a Hong
Kong-registered company, ‘Link-wise’, to handle all communications and
funds for World Buddhist Forums. APECF’s activism, however,
accentuated differences with the UFWD. Reports suggest that Wang
Zuo’an declined to release funding for the forum unless the money
already disbursed so far to APECF was accounted for. Consequently, the
Hong Kong Buddhist Association, which hosted the forum, received only
approximately $1.75 million and had to raise the rest. The extent of
rift was evident when Xiao Wunan pointedly did not attend the third
World Buddhist Forum.
The differences within the United Front establishment could be
reflective of the in-fighting underway at the highest echelons of the
CCP. While rumours circulating in Beijing suggest Xiao Wunan is
associated with Xi Jinping, PBSC member Jia Qinglin who oversees UFWD
is a Jiang Zemin loyalist. Wang Zuo’an though reputedly personally
affable, is credited with believing that religious freedom is the
Party’s prerogative to bestow or determine.
(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own)
Jayadeva Ranade is a former additional secretary in the Cabinet
Secretariat, Government of India
