Abstract: Freedom of faith and religion is very important for everyone to lead a righteous, progressive, and peaceful life. International law and the constitution of many countries respect and protect this freedom. But unfortunately, some authoritative and dictatorial regimes have been violating this freedom with impunity. Given the religious repressions and atrocities happening in the neighboring regions, the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit held on July 22 in Tokyo to discuss the situation of religious freedom in Asia proved relevant and timely. This author had the opportunity to speak at the summit, albeit briefly, on the religious repression in Tibet. Here is the expanded version of what was spoken at the Summit; why religion and religious freedom is important and how the CCP regime has been violating religious freedom in China and its occupied territories of Tibet, East Turkestan, Southern Mongolia, and others. How, if left unattended, will ultimately affect us all, and what must be done to uphold religious freedom for a better and peaceful world for our children?
Keywords: Religious freedom, Tibet, Dalai Lama, Universal brotherhood, Global community, IRF
Why is religion important and why do we need it?
H.H. the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader and 1989 Nobel Peace Laureate, has said that all religious teachings carry important messages of love, compassion, forgiveness, and non-violence. All the major religions in this world have a great potential to generate and contribute peace and harmony at all levels: individual, family, societal, national, and international levels. In order to have a peaceful world, we first need peace within ourselves at a personal level. This will have a ripple effect. For this, we need religion and moral ethics to guide us properly to find this peace within and outside ourselves. It is this important sacred potential of religions that we must uphold and promote for a better and peaceful world.
In a free and democratic nation, this religious freedom is respected and it compliments social and national harmony. But a dictatorial and authoritative regime, who wants to have complete control over people’s minds and bodies, sees religion as a threat to their authority, therefore, the religious repression. The very fact that they are against the religious teachings which are based on love, compassion, forgiveness, and non-violence, shows the evil and dangerous nature of the regime.
Tibet’s experience past and present:
It’s more than 70 years since China occupied Tibet militarily. Despite their propaganda and claims of emancipation, prosperity, development, and socialist paradise, Tibetans are still suffering under the repressive brutal communist regime. Violation of human rights, religious freedom, repression, and destruction of Tibetan identity which has been going on since the early occupation in the 1950s has now reached the climax. Today, the situation in Tibet is described as a “total information blackout”, “Tibet has become a police state”, “Tibetan plateau militarized” etc. The US Freedom House survey has Tibet as the most repressed and inaccessible country in its consecutive annual reports.
When China failed to gain legitimacy to rule Tibet even after 70 years of occupation and indoctrination, the communist regime decided to eliminate the root of the Tibetan identity, i.e. Tibetan language, culture, and religion.
More than 6000 monasteries and nunneries were destroyed and thousands were forced to disrobe in the early years of occupation. But the situation has become worse since the coming of Xi Jinping in 2012. Today, monasteries, religious statues and artifacts, and schools are destroyed in broad daylight before the eyes of the public, and information on these atrocities comes out only after the destruction and cover-up measures are done.
CCP’s propaganda and misinformation on separatism
China says the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Administration in Exile are separatists and anti-China. But the truth is different. It is the Chinese communist leadership who are separatist and anti-China. Many Tibetans and Chinese lived and studied peacefully and harmoniously together in two large monastic complexes of Larung-gar and Yachen-gar in Kham region in eastern Tibet. There were students from South Korea, Taiwan and other countries too. However Chinese authorities saw this good relationship between Tibetans and Chinese along with others studying Buddhism together as dangerous.
They started destroying the two monasteries in 2001 and sent the Chinese and the Tibetans to their respective places. Tibetan monks were not allowed to teach Buddhism to Chinese, and Chinese people were banned from receiving teachings from Tibetan masters. So, who is the real separatist? It is the CCP regime with its “divide and rule” policy that is the real separatist.
Many protested peacefully. Three nuns, Rinzin Dolma, Tsering Dolma, and Semgha committed suicide to protest the destructions and evictions. It was reported that monks and nuns were arrested and forced into indoctrination classes where they were coerced to wear Chinese military outfits, dance, and sing songs praising the Chinese communist party.
Emboldened China and daylight repression
The silence of the international community has emboldened China to commit these religious atrocities in daylight.
In December 2021, China dismantled a 99-foot Buddha statue and a 30-foot Maitreya (future Buddha) statue and destroyed 45 large prayer wheels and a monastic school in the Drago region in Kham province of Tibet. They dismantled a 45-foot statue of Guru Padmasambhava, an Indian saint who introduced Buddhism and was revered as the second Buddha in Tibet, in Nyimo Township.
But very little news or information comes out because of the communication restrictions, strict surveillance, and threat of torture. The world thinks Tibet is safe and OK because there is no news on Tibet. But the truth is the opposite.
Making laws to justify religious repression
The CCP, although it does not believe in and respect religions, knows the power of religions. To have total control over the people in China and the occupied territories, the CCP is trying to make religion its handy tool. When repressions, indoctrination, and destruction of monasteries, churches, and mosques failed to destroy people’s faith in religions, the CCP leadership came up with laws, rules, and regulations to control religions and the religious understanding of the people.
Last year, China came up with Religious Order No.19, Administrative Measures for Religious Activity Venue, to administer the places of worship in China and in its occupied regions. Through this regulation, China is trying to justify the CCP’s interference in religious matters with the people and to stop the international community’s criticism by saying that they are acting within the law.
Article 3 of the Order says, “Places of religious activity shall uphold the leadership of the CCP and the socialist system, thoroughly implement Xi Jinping’s ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics for the new era.”
Here China has openly made it clear that under this regulation all religious bodies must adopt “Xi Jinping’s ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics” in their religious teachings and practices. This is ridiculous and unacceptable! Communist ideology and Xi Jinping do not respect and believe in religion. So it is preposterous and sacrilegious on the part of the CCP leadership to dilute and profane the religious teachings for political agenda.
China also announced a law on patriotism last year. Articles 3 and 6 of the law say, “Patriotic education shall hold the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, persist in using Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the ‘Three Represents’, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as guidance, …”
From this, it is very clear that the CCP’s patriotic education is nothing more than indoctrinating and forcing the obsolete communist ideology on the masses and making it a mandatory part of education and social life. By idolizing Mao and Deng, the law also tries to erase the dark memories and records of all the deaths and sufferings that Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, and Deng’s Tiananmen Square massacre brought to China.
Forced and repeated use of “Xi Jinping thought” here and there is aimed at imposing cult worship and deification of Xi Jinping. This is evident from the fact that Tibetans are forced to make offerings and do prostrations before the pictures of Xi Jinping.
Control of religious leaders
As religious leaders are respected and revered, the CCP exerted authority over the selection and appointment of religious leaders and teachers. The Buddhist Association of China (BAC), the highest religious body looking after the teachings of Buddha, is being controlled by the CCP. Through this body, the CCP is trying to control the Buddhists not only in China but around the world. Arjia Rinpoche, a prominent Tibetan-Mongolian reincarnate lama, when he came to know that he was going to be appointed the head of the BAC, he writes in his book “Surviving the Dragon“, “I could no longer ignore the conflict between government interests and my own religious vows. Rather than betray my faith, I chose to leave my hometown, my friends, and my beloved monks at Kumbum Monastery. I chose the path of exile.”
He fled Tibet in 1998. His book has now become a testament to the atrocities the CCP has perpetrated and is perpetrating in Tibet since its occupation in 1950.
Buddhism is very popular in China and around the world and Tibetan reincarnated Lamas and teachers are highly revered in the Buddhist world. The CCP through their Religious Order No.5 in 2007 has asserted its power to select and control the reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhist masters. China is now aggressively spreading disinformation that it has historical and political rights to select the next Dalai Lama. This is wrong and completely false. The policy behind this is to produce religious leaders under the guise of reincarnation who will parrot the CCP’s dictates. The Chinese selected 11th Panchen Lama is a typical example of this policy.
This is the same with Christian, Islamist, and Taoist communities. The churches, mosques, and temples are all controlled by the CCP cadres and religious heads of these religions are all selected and groomed to stick to the CCP version of the religion with Xi Jinping’s ideology with Chinese characteristics. This is very dangerous and we must not let this continue.
Unfortunately, many religious communities in free and democratic nations remain silent on this issue for the fear of reprisal. Some are colluding with the CCP and following the CCP’s dictates for their personal benefit. This is immoral, dangerous, and very much against the teachings of all religions, where truth, justice, and humanity are respected. China instituted the World Buddhist Forum to interfere and influence the Buddhist around the world with its sugar-coated conference invitation. This Forum is analogous to another form of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’s bait for spiritual debt trap. We should not let the CCP invade this sacred realm of our faith and religions.
CCP is a threat to the world peace and stability
We all know that communism came to liberate the masses from inequality, injustice, and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. What communism did to the Soviet Unions and Eastern Europe is an open secret. What we see now in China is neither the dictatorship of the proletariat nor of the masses but the dictatorship of Xi Jinping and his cohorts.
Today, Southeast Asian countries are under great threat. Borders at India, Nepal, and Bhutan have become highly militarized. The South and East China Sea and Indo-Pacific regions have become a war zone, and Taiwan and Senkaku Island are constantly threatened. Who is responsible for these dangerous and volatile situations?
It is not China and the Chinese people. It is the CCP leadership, who in order to remain in power is doing all these inhuman, deadly, and brutal attacks on the freedom-loving civil societies of the world. It is very clear that the CCP regime in China is a threat to world peace and an obstacle to freedom and democracy around the world.
Clarification on China, Chinese, and the CCP
Here when we say China, it is not China as a nation and the Chinese people. We are not against China and Chinese people. We are against the CCP’s dangerous imperial colonial policy to rob our freedom and destroy our language, culture, and religion. Even Chinese people are vehemently longing for freedom from the CCP’s repressive regime.
China is a great civilization with a rich history and religious culture. It has a great potential to contribute to world civilization. However, the CCP destroyed this ancient civilization and its cultural and religious values. What we have today is a dictatorial, aggressive, xenophobic, and belligerent China destroying peace and freedom in China, Asia, and the world.
The five major religions in China are: Buddhism with around 388 million followers; Catholicism and Protestant with 106 million; Islam with 24 million; and Taoism with 6 million followers in China and the occupied territories. Against this backdrop, the number of Chinese communist party members is only 98 million. So, we can well imagine the fear of the CCP leadership of the religious bodies.
Countries and people have boundaries and identities. But religions have no borders and it does not discriminate against people. The teachings of these major religions are more or less universal. It is ultimately the universal brotherhood and the concept of global community, espoused by H.H. the Dalai Lama, with love and compassion that will save the world and humanity from the dark force of wars and aggressions. If all the five major religions in China are allowed to be stained and mixed with communist and political ideologies, it will greatly affect the integrity of the religions and their core values and teachings not only in China but around the world.
What should be done?
The US congress and government have passed legislation and made law the “Tibet Policy and Support Act 2020” and the recently upgraded it to “Tibet Resolve Act 2024”. This legislation succinctly warns the CCP to stop spreading disinformation about Tibet’s history and its false claim on the authority to select the 15th Dalai Lama. The law says, “United States public diplomacy efforts should counter disinformation about Tibet from the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, including disinformation about the history of Tibet, the Tibetan people, and Tibetan institutions, including that of the Dalai Lama.”
The EU Representatives have recently conveyed to China that the selection of religious leaders should happen without any government interference and in respect of religious norms, including in the case of the succession of the Dalai Lama.
Some Indian and Japanese monastic institutions have also issued statements warning China that they will not accept any Dalai Lama appointed or selected by the CCP regime. Democratic and freedom loving nations around the world also should follow these US and EU initiatives and prevent the CCP’s continued religious interference by issuing similar statements and passing laws to safeguard religious freedom.
Conclusion and the takeaway point
If we are looking for a free and peaceful world without war and repression, we must work together to uphold the principle of religious freedom and free China and the occupied regions from the CCP’s oppressive regime. We must strongly oppose the CCP’s religious and patriotic laws which are anti-humanity and against the Chinese constitution and international laws. We must appeal to all religious bodies and individual practitioners to unite and oppose the CCP’s aggressive moves to dilute and mix the religious teachings of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and others with Xi Jinping’s ideology with Chinese characteristics.
Dr. Martin Luther King, an American civil rights activist, has rightly said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” So, whenever there are religious oppressions, destruction of places and objects of worship, we all must come together to protest these acts of violence against religion and be unanimous in strongly condemning the perpetrators and their cohorts.
*Dr. Tsewang Gyalpo Arya is the Representative of the Liaison Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama for Japan and East Asia. He is the former Secretary of the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) and former Director of the Tibet Policy Institute (TPI) of the Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, India. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Advanced Buddhist Studies, Delhi University. His publications include, Harnessing the Dragon’s Fume and The Ancient Tibetan Civilization.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are his own, and that the Bitter Winter has published part of the paper and the full version of the paper is uploaded here as per the request of the author himself.