Failed Secularisation, New Nationalism and Governmentality: The Rise of Buddhism in Post-Mao China

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Koen Wellens

Published:

2017

Publisher:

University of Oslo

When Deng Xiaoping started his Reform and Opening Up (gaige kaifang) policies in 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also ushered in a period of tolerance for religious practice, guided by a strong modernist belief that religion would disappear by itself as a result of economic development. At the level of political ideology, the Chinese party-state continues to preach strict secularism and atheism. Nevertheless, at another level of discourse, there are indications that point in another direction, at least for Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. A speech by President Xi Jinping in March 2014 seemed to confirm the trend of the preceding decade towards an increasingly positive official appraisal of the role of Buddhism in Chinese society. The significance of this latest development is underscored by the multitude of Chinese articles appearing in Buddhist publications that optimistically herald a new era for Buddhism in China. This chapter argues – and in this way gives some credence to the optimism of Buddhist leaders and intellectuals – that the Communist Party, in line with its transition from a Marxist to a nationalist party, is now gradually relaxing its programme of secularism. In doing so, it is especially looking towards Buddhism, coopting it in the party’s gargantuan task of governing China, and at the same time allowing it to re-enter sectors of Chinese society that until very recently were strictly off limits to religion.

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