The great Taiwanese Buddhist leader certainly deserved to be honored. But the Chinese delegation used the event to advocate for “national reunification.”
By Hao Jianyu
March 11, 2025
On January 28, 2025, Venerable Jing Yao, Chairman of the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), passed away in Taipei. A solemn ceremony to honor him was held with center at the Banqiao Gymnasium in New Taipei City from February 26 to 28, 2025.
Venerable Zong Xing, Vice Chairman of Mainland China’s government-controlled China Buddhist Association, led a delegation of eleven to Taiwan to attend the ceremony.
Venerable Jing Yao, originally a journalist, became a Buddhist practitioner after a life-changing car accident at age 26. At 28, he was ordained by the elder monk Guanghua and given the name Jing Yao.
When he requested ordination as a monk, Guanghua initially declined, noting that journalists often engage in work considered sinful. He instructed the candidate to recite the “Eighty-eight Buddha Great Confession Writings” ten thousand times before being permitted to become a monk. Following this directive, he was ultimately ordained.
In 2018, Master Jing Yao was elected as the Chairman of BAROC. In 2019, he led a delegation to visit the Vatican for an audience with the Pope and advocated for a summit of religious leaders.
There is no doubt that Venerable Xin Yao was a key figure in international Buddhism and deserved to be honored. However, the invitation by BAROC (which has been criticized in the past for his connections with the Kuomintang party and pro-Chinese attitudes) and the participation of the China Buddhist Association in the ceremony was not politically neutral.
The China Buddhist Association is a propaganda tool of the CCP and the United Front and any link it establishes with Taiwanese Buddhists ultimately works for the benefit of Beijing.
In the press release about its participation to Venerable Jing Yao’s memorial ceremony, the China Buddhist Association explicitly stated that it attended the event inter alia to “strengthen the realization of national reunification.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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