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The Buddha Party

How the People's Republic of China Works to Define and Control Tibetan Buddhism

By (author) John Powers
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, New York, United States
Published: 20th Oct 2016
Dimensions: w 156mm h 234mm d 22mm
Weight: 722g
ISBN-10: 019935815X
ISBN-13: 9780199358151
Barcode No: 9780199358151
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Synopsis
The Buddha Party tells the story of how the People's Republic of China employs propaganda to define Tibetan Buddhist belief and sway opinion within the country and abroad. The narrative they create is at odds with historical facts and deliberately misleading, but, John Powers argues, it is widely believed by Han Chinese. Most of China's leaders appear to deeply believe the official line regarding Tibet, which resonates with Han notions of themselves as China's most advanced nationality and as a benevolent race that liberates and culturally uplifts minority peoples. This in turn profoundly affects how the leadership interacts with their counterparts in other countries. Powers's study focuses in particular on the government's "patriotic education" campaign-an initiative that forces monks and nuns to participate in propaganda sessions and repeat official dogma. Powers contextualizes this within a larger campaign to transform China's religions into "patriotic" systems that endorse Communist Party policies. This book offers a powerful, comprehensive examination of this ongoing phenomenon, how it works and how Tibetans resist it.

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The Buddha Party is an excellent book that will be essential reading for students of contemporary Tibet. It is a handy and accessible classroom resource for courses on contemporary China that address the PRC's ethnic policies and the status of the country's ethnic nationalities. The book focuses on Tibetans, but it is highly relevant for understanding Chinese nationalism and the narratives that underpin the Chinese Dream - Xi Jinping's vision for the great
rejuvenation of China. It will also be helpful to those wishing to gain a greater understanding of current events in Xinjiang, where Islam is being similarly targeted as a threat to national integration and China's return to world power status. * Journal of Asian Studies * Although this book is important reading for anyone who wants to understand the contemporary religious situation in Tibet, it is also a useful resource for understanding the use of propaganda in modern China. I would also highly recommend the book to general readers who are interested in, and concerned about, the recent rise of similar forms of discourse in Europe and America: 'alternative facts' is propaganda by another name. * Manuel Lopez, Nova Religio *