Abstract
China has promoted the so-called “five connectivities” (policy coordination, infrastructure connection, trade facilitation, financial integration, and people-to-people exchange) under the Belt and Road Initiative towards the relevant countries. Together, the five connectivities constitute a comprehensive agenda in forming a long-term and sustainable cooperative relationship between China and these countries. China has rightly put people-to-people exchange as one of the five, but has not been very clear what concrete areas are to be promoted, and so far religion has received very scant attention from the official side.
This paper makes the argument that China, although officially atheistic, and for a long time having had a very secular culture, ironically has many indigenous religious resources that it can enlist and mobilize to promote stronger people-to-people exchanges with many Belt and Road countries. While China is atheistic or secular, the people in many countries along the Belt and Road remain strongly religious, or at least more spiritual or religious compared to the average Chinese. To enhance people-to-people exchange the spiritual dimension should not be overlooked. This paper will examine in particular Buddhism and Islam, and how these two religions are very much part of the Chinese heritage and how and why China should not overlook them in the conduct of public diplomacy towards the Belt and Road countries. It will review some of the past examples in light of the current push for people-to-people exchanges, and make some recommendations.
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Notes
- 1.
In contrast, historically there has not been a comparable figure in Chinese Christianity.
- 2.
Śarīra is a Sanskrit word, referring to relics of the hard body parts such as tooth or bones of Buddha or other master monks. Śarīra are considered sacred by all Buddhist believers in the world. Ancient historians of China recorded that there were nineteen temples in China that housed these Śarīra but today archeologists and historians can only confirm eight temples.
- 3.
Singh and Wallis (2016) however concluded that the effects of Śarīra diplomacy are somehow limited because the Myanmar public perceive the kind of Chinese Buddhism is not quite the same and not quite correct.
- 4.
As a top provincial official of Zhejiang (where these cities are located) at that time, Xi Jinping opened and attended the Forum.
- 5.
China has already built one in Nepal and another in India (Shi Mingsheng 2015: 35).
- 6.
In 1994, during the visit by Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara, the Supreme Patriach of Thailand, he was given a high-level reception and received personally by the then top Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
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Ngeow, CB. (2019). Religion in China’s Public Diplomacy Towards the Belt and Road Countries in Asia. In: Islam, M.N. (eds) Silk Road to Belt Road. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2998-2_5
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