Is The Colombo Lotus Tower A Trojan Horse From China?
Prof. Patrick Mendis
China will soon inaugurate the 350-metre-high Lotus Tower in Sri Lanka, the tallest and most sophisticated telecommunication-skyscraper in South Asia. The tower, emanating from the Lotus Sutra in Buddhism, is a narrative for Beijing to formulate a sustainable and peaceful “soft power” strategy that would appeal globally. Because religion has a mutually beneficial “causal impact” on the lives of people and state, especially in civilizational polities like China and Sri Lanka.
For China, will the emerging culture of religiosity be then more successful in governance and diplomacy?
Supporting his “New Era,” the perennial President Xi Jinping has embraced religious faith as part of his “China Dream” and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The nominally atheist Communist Party of China (CPC) has now recognized that religion in Chinese history had served as a powerful tool in domestic governance and international diplomacy. For President Xi’s “rejuvenation” of Chinese nation and national culture after the Century of Humiliation, the New York Times documents that this mix of faith and politics constitutes a “reimagining of the political-religious state that once ruled China.”
The Freedom of Religious Pursuits
When the president’s father Xi Zhongxun was the head of the CPC’s religious work in 1980, the famous Document 19 warned the party members from banning religious pursuits because it would isolate the Chinese people. Ever since, China has been restoring the places of religious worship—temples, mosques, and churches—once destroyed by Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
After years of material development through the liberalized trade policies and the opening-up policies of Deng Xiaoping, President Xi said, “if the people have faith, the nation has hope, and the country has strength” to realize a “virtuous and harmonious society” at home and to create a global “community of shared destiny.”
Some Chinese strategists are convinced that the ancient Chinese philosophy rooted in the belief of tianxia (“all under Heaven” as brothers and sisters) had been long-lasting in the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC). Therefore, it could still be instrumental in governance and diplomacy, where China is the “new” Middle Kingdom with a Mandate of Heaven bestowed upon the emperor, the Son of Heaven.
Referring to the Chinese rejuvenation by highlighting their teachings on obedience and order, President Xi often quotes Confucius, Mencius, and other ancient sages and promotes “the idea that the party is the custodian of a 5,000-year-old civilization.” For others, China envisions a more harmonious world with Beijing’s definition of a “community of common destiny” through Confucianism.
The Hole in the China Model
In all this, China has been trying to project its “soft power” through the promotion of Confucius Institutes as a cultural “export.” Beijing has, for example, set up over 500 institutes in more than 140 countries while almost half-million students from over 200 countries are studying in Chinese universities. Although the study of Chinese culture and language has become more popular for financial reasons, the China model is weak. It lacks a universally accepted value system compared to the ideology of freedom and democracy in the West that is widely shared by the world—and even the Chinese people, particularly the 60-million strong Chinese diaspora.
The pervasive efforts to popularize the China model has recently been criticized in the United States. Senator Marco Rubio, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, accusesBeijing for “exporting authoritarianism with Chinese characteristics.” The Canadian Security Intelligence Service expressed concerns that “some politicians” are under the influence of China, especially concerning the Canadian policies toward Beijing. The Chinese-Canadians also feel the fear of China’s rising power as they exercise their “Canadian values” of freedom, democracy, and human rights.
In a multi-country report of the US National Endowment for Democracy, the authors contrasted the soft power of China’s charm offensive of “information warfare” with that of “sharp power,” which “pierces, penetrates, or perforates the political and information environments in the targeted countries.” Speaking before the US Senate Intelligence Committee alongside with the chiefs of other American intelligence agencies, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that “the whole of Chinese society is a threat to the US” and China undermines America’s “military, economic, cultural, and informational power across the globe.” Other democratic countries like Australia and New Zealand have also documented the infiltration of China’s authoritarian influence on their political, economic, and educational systems.
The negative global public opinion has increased as Confucianism and authoritarian governance have reinforced each other beyond the Chinese borders. Beijing needs an alternative soft power of attraction for China’s history and culture. Buddhism would most likely serve as a “soul power” of China as Beijing has tried to expand it through China’s BRI and its new globalized Buddhist network. This is because that Buddhism has had a historical appeal as a spiritual “import” to China and then successfully “export” to East Asia and the world.
