China veteran Shaun Rein explains why the West does so poorly in understanding China, and why China’s government is doing such a bad job in explaining China to the rest of the world, in an interview with Cyrus Janssen.
Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.
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| Ian Johnson |
More questions and answers in Oclarim.How did the book take form?I tried to identify representative cases for the spiritual life of ethnic Chinese people. That meant making a tough decision to leave out minority groups, such as Tibetans and Uighurs, because I felt that their stories were very different from ethnic Chinese. Also, ethnic Chinese make up 91 percent of China’s population and so I felt it was enough to try to cover their faiths. The question was how: China is such a big country. So I read a lot, traveled a lot, and after many false starts began to find the five case studies that make up this book.You talk about religions in China in your book. What is your definition of religion?Good question! I try not to answer that. Sociologists debate this endlessly. I would say I have a broad definition. It is not just an organized faith like Catholicism or Islam, but can include rituals and beliefs that people practice on their own that give their life a deeper meaning. Today, in many parts of the world, this is how faith is expressed: personally and privately, as opposed to communally as in the past, especially when most of us lived in villages. So I tried to have an open definition.You mention the destruction of religious buildings in China in the last century. Can you expand on that?China began to attack religion in the late 19th century as part of a general self-doubt about its traditions and culture. Faith practices began to be defined as illegitimate or legitimate based on the imported western paradigm of “superstition” versus “religion,” terms that originated in the Reformation as a way initially to discredit Catholicism and later used in other parts of the world to attack indigenous faiths. Chinese elites began to define most of their practices as superstitious. A huge wave of auto-cultural genocide ensued. By 1950 half the temples in China had been destroyed. The Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976 was the culmination, when all places of worship were closed.You have said that there is a religious awakening in China after the Mao era. Don’t you feel that Maoism was a sort of religion?Maoism was an ersatz religion for a government that had destroyed its cultural heritage and was looking for new ways to satisfy people’s hunger for belief. Of course, it died when he died…..What, in your opinion, is the most significant story in your book?My preference is for the Beijing pilgrimage associations, which are working-class people who organize one of the most boisterous, hard-drinking, hard-smoking pilgrimages I’ve ever attended – to Mt. Miaofeng in Beijing’s western suburbs. It’s certainly the most fun story in the book.You also visited underground churches. What you can say about this experience?Most underground churches are underground in name only. They are often big with hundreds of members and I guess about 99 percent are well-known to authorities. So essentially they are not underground but are simply not registered with the government because they reject government control over religion. But for various reasons the government tolerates them, largely because most are apolitical.
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| Ian Johnson |
in the Globe&Mail. Just last week Xinjiang, home to the Uyghur, saw a strong increase in security forces.The treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs offers a glimpse of the downward spirals that can emerge under harsh policies.
In Xinjiang, what’s needed is de-escalation, “some kind of a peace process like the British had in Northern Ireland,” said Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. But that’s difficult to do when strict government policies have largely eliminated moderate voices and civil society.
“It’s a tough hole for them to climb out of there,” he said. “And this is going to be the largest conflict area for religion and state in China going forward.”
Elsewhere, China has so far been more lenient. Though hundreds of crosses were removed from churches in Zhejiang province, such action has barely been seen elsewhere – and virtually all Zhejiang churches remain open.
More in the Globe&Mail.There are signs, however, that China is preparing for stronger action. Draft rules released last fall threaten fines for those who rent space to unregistered religious organizations, and new restrictions on contact and financial transactions between Chinese believers and foreign groups Mr. Johnson warned that such a strategy could “create a lot more problems for them than they think. They’re essentially picking a fight with people who are not likely to back down.” Under Mao, he noted, the Christian church roughly quadrupled in size despite the imprisonment and death of pastors and priests.
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| +Kaiser Kuo |
Kaiser Kuo, International Communications Director at Baidu.com, the Chinese version of Google, said that while surfing Quora, an e-forum for bloggers and people seeking information on diverse subjects, he was struck by the barrage of queries, apparently from Indians, on China. It was in September 2014, almost four months after Modi had been sworn in and Xi had just paid a three-day official visit to India.
Kuo said he jotted down the queries by Indian users from September 22 and 25, finding that all 28 were about security. They wondered if the two nations could go to war again, who would win if that happened, and bilateral rivalry in other areas. However, there were no questions from Chinese surfers.
"Very few Chinese are aware of border issues," Kuo told Beijing Review, referring to the territorial dispute in 1962. "Not many are aware of the territories in dispute. I would be hard-pressed to name even one area of Chinese concern about India except perhaps support for Tibet Autonomous Region and the so-called "government in exile" of the Dalai Lama in [India's] Dharamshala. But that's not an insurmountable problem. It's a 50-year-old thing and not an issue now. The sad truth is that most Chinese just don't think that often about India. It's certainly not regarded as a threat."More in the Beijing Review.
Tibetian Buddhism has become popular in the West, but also among rich Han Chinese. Journalist Ian Johnson discusses with author John Osburn the reasons behind this popularity in a two-piece interview for the New York Times.More in the New York Times. Piece one can be found here.Q. Why Tibetan Buddhism and not Chinese Buddhism?A. There’s a sense among Han Chinese that it’s been less corrupted by the cultural and political upheavals of the past 60 years. Their ideas about Tibetan Buddhism also mirror many of their images of Tibet itself as being pre-modern, spiritualistic, happy. I get told that a lot. There’s a perception among Han that Tibetans are “happy” people and that belief in Buddhism is a key enabler of their happiness.Also, Tibetan Buddhism is seen as more mysterious, powerful and efficacious than Chinese Buddhism. I’m just beginning to research this, but I think the practice draws them in as well. I don’t think Chinese Buddhism puts as much emphasis on practices like repetition of sutras and ritual prostrations for lay followers. Han Chinese often call it their gongke — their homework — this set of rituals and practices to follow in their daily lives.Q. What’s your view on whether they’re more sympathetic to the Tibetan cause?A. Given the sensitivity of this issue, I usually just ask about their views of Tibetans in general. And it seems that it’s led some people to overturn some negative stereotypes they had of Tibetans, such as being backward or uncivilized. But it’s unclear to me that this religious encounter is going to alter their attitudes toward the Tibetan issue. I’m reluctant to say anything definitive, because I don’t have enough data.Q.You’ve mentioned how this has warped some aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, by giving money and prestige to religious figures who otherwise would have a fairly low status. They just happened to somehow attract the fancy of a rich Han Chinese and get showered with money. How are they discovered?A. Some young monks go to Han areas with the specific aim of attracting Han followers, hoping to encounter wealthy patrons. But sometimes it’s just random. But these random encounters are usually interpreted according to notions of fate. You might have a rich entrepreneur who just happens to sit next to an ordinary monk on an airplane. Maybe he’s having a spiritual crisis and believes that he was fated to sit next to this monk and become his disciple. Even if the monk doesn’t see it that way, as a monk it’s his duty to help someone who is suffering, so he likely won’t refuse the person.Q. Is it just a coincidence that a number of wealthy Westerners also follow Tibetan Buddhism? Is there something in Tibetan Buddhism that wealthy people like?A. Its rise in China is clearly connected to the global popularity of Tibetan Buddhism, which arose in the West in the 1960s and ’70s and slightly later became popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Lay Buddhists in the mainland read Chinese translations of many of the same pop Buddhist philosophy books read around the world. As in the West, they view Tibetan Buddhism as offering a cure to many of the ills of modernity. So it’s linked up with the global trend, but also “reimported” in a sense.But some aspects are unique to the People’s Republic. Take the rise of the Wuming Buddhist Institute. Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche, the founder of the Larung Wuming Buddhist Study Institute in Serthar County [in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province], had a vision that Tibetan Buddhism should spread to Han areas. That development was autonomous from the global rise of Tibetan Buddhism as a form of spiritual self-help, but many Chinese who started reading pop Buddhist philosophy eventually ended up at Serthar.Now there are over 10,000 monks and lay Buddhists studying there, and many are Han Chinese. The Wuming Buddhist Institute even streams Buddhist sermons and has set up online courses.
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| Roy Graff |
Regardless of your political views on Tibet, I think everyone agrees that people living there should be able to earn a living wage and receive proper education to have better chances in life. Tourism does have a good potential of leaving more money in the local economy compared to many other industries. Tibet was ‘discovered’ as a tourism destination by foreigners but these days, nearly 10 million Chinese visit there every year and the Chinese government plans for this to increase to 15 million by 2015. Foreigners currently cannot go, and when they are allowed, they need an additional permit beyond the China visa and their visits are monitored.
So the inbound industry in Tibet relies really solely on Chinese tourists. Domestic tourism in China has been booming as the middle class continues to grow. It still relies mainly on large organised tour groups but there is a rising niche of independent, intrepid travellers that go trekking, camping, bird watching etc. and are much more aware of their effects on the local community and environment when they travel.
Places like Tibet, Sichuan or Xinjiang in Western China have a very fragile environment made worse by global warming. It is home to many minority groups that have fascinating cultures that are very different from that of Han Chinese. That is what attracts Chinese to visit there. That is what needs to be preserved and protected if people 5 years, 10 years down the line still want to enjoy and learn from visiting these areas.
There are places where mega-projects and fun theme parks probably work ok – close to cities with a large population that needs leisure time distractions. Where the visiting pressures are so high that facilities must be built to accommodate the demand. I would argue that it is folly to say ‘Chinese people want theme parks so we build them’ when I have seen how many Chinese people change their views after spending time travelling and being exposed to different cultures and are made aware of the fragility of certain areas.
People in position of power and authority need to think of the future. Places of natural beauty belong to humanity and it is our collective responsibility to keep it beautiful for future generations. Local communities who have lived there for hundreds or thousands of years usually know instinctively how to care for nature and need to be consulted and given power to make decisions.
I have seen this work in other places in SE Asia and also in China. By limiting numbers of visitors and focusing on authentic experiences delivered by local guides and communities. revenue is still coming in. Less people who pay more and spend more time in the area.
A theme park that purports to communicate culture will never take the place of getting know people who truly live their culture.More on Roy Graff's weblog.
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| Howard French |
“The Dalai Lama is a great and charismatic spiritual figure, but a poor and poorly advised political strategist,” wrote Howard French, a long time foreign correspondent for the New York Times. “The Dalai Lama should have closed down the Hollywood strategy a decade ago and focused on back-channel diplomacy with Beijing. He should have publicly renounced the claim to a so-called Greater Tibet, which demands territory that was never under the control of the Lhasa government. Sending his envoys to talk about talks with the Chinese while simultaneously encouraging the global pro-Tibet lobby has achieved nothing.”
The Hollywood trap keeps the Dalai Lama as the nostalgic reminder of a simpler time, a romantic counterweight to an aggressive China, a salve for our materialistic money-grubbing selves. The tragedy of Tibet is its plight is what keeps it alive in western consciousness. The Dalai Lama has made his people the posterchildren of what Pico Iyer calls “one of the fastest growing nations of the world – the land of the deracinated (since by some counts there are now one hundred million refugees in the world, part of a tribe that is twice as populous as Australia and Canada combined)”. And he has done this just by being himself – a twinkling man with an infectious laugh carrying the yellow card of a refugee.More in FirstPost.
"The past is past. When the People's Liberation Army came to Tibet, according to legal experts, Tibet was a de facto independent nation. Therefore, we consider it an occupied land. But that doesn't mean we are seeking independence," he said in the interview, which was published on the channel's website and is due to be broadcast later.He also maintains that Tibet has been "ruled by terror".
