Shangri-La is best known as a fictional location, an idyllic valley first imagined by a British novelist in the 1930s, but you can easily locate it on a map. Shangri-La, located in the foothills of the Himalayas in southwestern China, was known by its more mundane name until 2001, when the city was rebranded by Chinese authorities keen to promote tourism. Their ploy worked.
The star of Shangri-La is Ganden Zumtsering Monastery. Destroyed by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in 1966, this Tibetan Buddhist monastery has been rebuilt into a vast complex with a golden roof and home to more than 700 monks. When I visited in October, it was under construction and full of Chinese tourists.
Like many monasteries, Sumtsering is thriving thanks to the growing popularity of Tibetan Buddhism in China. When the government loosened restrictions on religious worship in the 1990s, the practice spread, especially among urban elites dissatisfied with the Chinese Communist Party’s materialistic worldview. It is an open secret that even party officials are followers of Tibetan lamas.
The recent spread of Tibetan Buddhism is both a threat and an opportunity for President Xi Jinping. He wants to make China politically and culturally homogeneous, but that goal could be jeopardized by Tibetan language and traditions steeped in history. But Mr. Xi has instituted a program that seeks to exploit Tibetan Buddhism’s growing popularity to his own advantage, transforming the tradition from a hotbed of opposition to a vehicle for assimilation and party propaganda. If successful, it could smooth his path to lifelong power and help remake China according to his nationalist vision.
Tibetan Buddhism is more than just a spiritual practice. It is an expression of Tibetan cultural identity and resistance to Chinese rule. The Chinese Communist Party annexed Tibet in 1951, arguing that the then-independent Tibet historically belonged to China and needed to be liberated from the Dalai Lama’s Buddhist theocracy. The Dalai Lama fled to India to establish the Tibetan government-in-exile, and Tibet has since become a source of resentment against the Chinese government.
Tibetologist Dhondup Lekjong says Xi’s ultimate goal is to completely erase Tibet’s language and cultural identity. In a campaign similar to the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on China’s Uighur Muslims, Tibetan teachers and writers have been arrested as “separatists” for promoting the Tibetan language, and more than 1 million Tibetan children have been sent to China. They are sent to boarding schools to assimilate into the culture. President Xi’s efforts to control Tibetan Buddhism are just one part of a long-standing effort to suppress Tibetan identity, but they have taken on added significance as the practice expands in China.
In order to capture the popularity of Tibetan Buddhism, the Chinese Communist Party has recruited religious leaders willing to practice what it calls Sinicized Buddhism, which combines state-sanctioned religious teachings with socialist propaganda taught by Party-sanctioned clergy. The monastery recruits people and gives them money and status. For example, the well-funded Zumtsering Monastery has been officially designated by the Chinese Communist Party as a “pioneer in the practice of Sinicizing Buddhism.” In order to separate Buddhism from Tibetan culture, monks are under pressure to replace traditional Tibetan scriptures with Chinese translations. Lezong said they will soon practice in Chinese.
This approach is part of a broader campaign affecting all religions in China. From January 1, all religious organizations are legally required to “carry out patriotic education and enhance national consciousness and patriotism among their clergy and members.” Those who do not pledge allegiance to Mr. Xi, raise the Chinese flag, and preach “patriotism” are now subject to legal penalties. If Mao wanted to eliminate religion, Xi wants to nationalize religion.
By embracing Tibetan Buddhism, Xi is one step closer to realizing what he and the Chinese Communist Party call the “China Dream.” This dream is a vision that seeks to unite dozens of ethnic groups, including China’s majority Han Chinese, Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongolians. their dedication to the motherland and the party. Mr. Xi has already consolidated more political power than any other modern leader, but achieving the China Dream will likely require more challenges. It’s about winning the hearts of your subjects. As communist ideology loses its appeal, Xi Jinping is turning to religion to help sell his plan to the people.
But it may not be so easy. Joshua Esler, a researcher on Tibetan culture at Australia’s Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, said Tibetan Buddhism has become so popular because it offers Chinese people something that the Chinese government cannot. , he said. He said many Han Chinese “believe that Tibetan Buddhism retains a spiritual authenticity that has been lost in China.” They see Tibet as an alternative to the corruption, materialism and environmental destruction that characterized life under the Chinese Communist Party. Government intervention in Tibetan Buddhism could alienate believers and bring them closer to Buddhist leaders who secretly support the exiled Dalai Lama.
As for Tibetans themselves, Sinicized Buddhism is unlikely to spread any time soon. Many of them believe that monasteries that have embraced Xi’s plan so enthusiastically are sold out. But things may start to change as the government intensifies its campaign and a new generation of assimilated Tibetans comes of age.
After visiting Shangri-La, I went to Daocheng, a remote town in Tibet. There, a young monk named Phuntsok showed me around his monastery. “Without the Communist Party, we would not have religious freedom,” Phuntsok told me as we walked through the ornate chapel. No wonder he praised the Chinese Communist Party’s support for Tibetan Buddhism. Locals told me that the monastery, Yanten Gompa, receives a large amount of government funding. A newly paved road snaked up the mountainside where the monastery is located, ending at a parking lot built to accommodate hundreds of visitors. A new welcome gate is under construction, and the tourism bureau has promoted Yangteng as one of the region’s major tourist attractions.
I followed Phuntsok to the second floor of the chapel, where he showed me an exhibit celebrating the 1950 “liberation” of the monastery by the Red Army. The space doubled as a classroom. A whiteboard hinted at a lesson on how monks can “actively guide religion to adapt to a socialist society.” The monastery belongs to the Buddhist tradition of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but Phuntsok did not mention the exiled spiritual leader, whose name and image are censored in Tibet.
Instead, Phuntsok praised Gyaltsen Norbu, a Buddhist leader who was chosen as Panchen Lama by the Chinese Communist Party as a child, a position second only to the Dalai Lama. (Many Tibetans do not recognize Norbu as legitimate. In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized another child as the Panchen Lama, but Chinese authorities immediately detained him and he remains missing. ) When the 88-year-old Dalai Lama passes away, Norbu’s successor is likely to be selected by the Chinese Communist Party, who will be brought up under the supervision of the Chinese Communist Party and expected to promote Sinicized Buddhism. Westerners tend to imagine the Dalai Lama as a force for peace and human rights, but that position can easily be exploited by totalitarianism.
Gray Tuttle, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University, said the Chinese Communist Party is wary of any religious movement not under its control. In 2017, the government ordered the demolition of Larung Gar, Tibet’s most popular Buddhist monastery. Thousands of residents, including many Han Chinese, were evacuated from the remote valley where they had come to study abroad. The official reason for the eviction was that the monastery was not complying with safety regulations. A likely explanation is that the Chinese Communist Party felt threatened by the success of the monasteries and the influence of the teachers, although the government initially supported the monasteries. “The Chinese Communist Party definitely wants to limit the charismatic power of certain lamas,” Tuttle told me.
The challenge Mr. Xi has therefore set himself is to rebuild Tibetan Buddhism without sacrificing its appeal. Judging by the large crowd at Zumtsering, he appears to have been successful, at least among some Han Chinese. “Tibetan lamas have the deepest knowledge,” Jing Yi, a Han Chinese woman who traveled 400 miles to the monastery to meet her guru, told me. But the number of devotees like her far outnumbers tourists, many of whom dress up as Tibetan pilgrims and model for photos, striking lotus poses, spinning prayer wheels, and admiring Buddhist murals. I was staring at him pretending to be. Few people entered the chapel, where photography was prohibited. Government-backed monasteries like Zumtseling may attract photo-seeking tourists, but opulent temples are unlikely to attract true believers.
