Taoism Associations Another CCP United Front Tool

In the pretext of International religious exchange, Beijing intends to extend its influence through numerous Taoists associations around the world

A Taoist delegate (C) takes a nap during the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on March 10, 2009. Liu Jin/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Beijing initiated the World Federation of Taoism (WFT) in the name of international religious exchange, identifying itself as a proxy of China’s only indigenous religion. The move would be another united front tool of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to export communist ideology to the rest of the world, following the Confucius Institute.

Either WFT or China Taoist Association is supervised by the State Religious Affairs Bureau, which is directly under the Central Committee’s United Front Work Department (UFWD)—a political organization that the communist regime designed to unite and dissolve the forces of different political groups and all sectors of society for the party’s interest.

The U.S. government has defined the CCP’s UFWD as an espionage organization.

At the inauguration ceremony held in Beijing on Jan. 30, WFT’s chairman Li Guangfu, who also served as president of China’s Taoist Association, claimed that the WFT is a new platform for Taoists at home and abroad to unite and collaborate on the “peaceful development of the world.”

Last September, UFWD Minister Shi Taifeng attended the inaugural meeting of WFT on the International Taoist Forum at Mount Mao, the holy site of Taoism in Jiangsu Province, and delivered a speech. Wang Huling, chairman of the Political Consultative Conference, also expressed congratulations through a letter.

Taoism arose in China in the 6th century BC. More than 2,500 years ago, Lao Tzu’s masterpiece “Tao Te Ching” laid the foundation for the Taoist school that spans cosmology, life, and governance of traditional thought, profoundly impacting the cultural and religious life of the world.

Since the 16th century, the Tao Te Ching has been translated into about 250 languages, ranking as the second-highest best-selling translated book after the Bible.

CCP’s United Front Tactic

Communism has an anti-divine theory with the purpose of “eliminating religions.” In the 1950s, the CCP created an array of official organizations in a bid to take the helm at Chinese traditional culture and belief schools, for example, the Taoist Association, the Buddhist Association, the Catholic Patriotic Association, and the Committee for the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Christianity, with all their senior clergymen being either secret party members or pseudo-believers who defected to the party.

In the 1960s-1970s, the CCP outlawed all belief groups during the Cultural Revolution launched by ex-leader Mao Zedong, resulting in a large number of monks, Taoist priests, and other religious discipliners being persecuted and scriptures and temples being destroyed.

A Taoist monk walks past paramilitary police in Beijing on March 2, 2010. Li Xin/AFP via Getty Images

Moreover, from 2004 to May 2020, the CCP deployed 541 Confucius Institutes and 1,170 Confucius Classes in 162 countries and regions worldwide, blatantly distorting Confucius’s traditional values, teaching the CCP’s ideology, and brainwashing innocent people.

In 2017, Li Guangfu, president of China’s Daoist Association, told the CCP media Xinhua News that “now that there are Confucius Institutes all over the world, Taoism should also be internationalized and globalized.” He claimed that the experience of Confucius Institutes should be absorbed to “prepare for disseminating the Taoist culture.”

Mr. Li also stressed learning from the Belt and Road Initiative, CCP’s global infrastructure scheme aimed at developing countries, as “an essential first step in taking Taoism global.”

However, the role of the Confucius Institute has been dramatically weakened by the exposure of the CCP’s ideological export and the boycott and closure of Confucius Institutes in the United States, Sweden, and other countries, according to independent writer Zhuge Mingyang.

Mr. Zhuge told The Epoch Times that in the international community, it is not often thought that religious groups are associated with the ideology of a particular regime. “Therefore, the CCP’s ‘ideological unification war’ through religion is more covert and confusing,” he said, adding, “The WFT emerged under the guise of Taoist culture exchange, but in reality, it is a united front organization of [the CCP].”

Li Yuanhua, a former associate historian professor at China’s Capital Normal University, indicated, “If [the CCP] uses the Confucius Institute as a means of language learning and cultural exchange, the so-called WFT is inclined to religious discussions. The two approaches differ in means, but their nature should be the same. They can also complement each other in function.”

CCP’s Influence in Taiwan Through Taoism

According to the CCP, the WFT reportedly has 52 Taoist organizations and individuals worldwide as its members. The CCP’s China News Service said that Taoist associations are scattered in nearly 40 countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and other countries, and Taoist palaces can also be commonly seen in Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, the United States, Canada, and other countries.

Research scholar Guo Baosheng of Georgetown University believes that the CCP’s organization of the WFT is clearly for a unification war, especially for a religious unification war against Taiwan.

He explained, “Although Taiwan is ideologically opposed to the CCP, there are many Taoists in Taiwan. So the CCP would find a lot of common ground through the link of religion to bring those influential Taoist figures over to publicize for the CCP and stand up for the CCP at critical times.”

A Taoist monk offers prayers to passerbys outside a temple in Taipei on March 23, 2008. Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images

According to the International Religious Freedom Report 2021 released by the American Institute in Taiwan, 49.3 percent of Taiwan’s 23.6 million people practice traditional folk religions, 12.4 percent of which are Taoist.

Mr. Guo told The Epoch Times that Taoism significantly impacts Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The influence on the United States and Europe is mainly in the academic field.

‘Red’ Taoism

A widely mocked video went viral on social media during Chinese New Year. Although the video was made several years ago, it has only recently been circulated.

The video shows a group of Taoist priests and nuns at Mount Mao raising their right fists above their heads to take an oath, a typical gesture when members vow loyalty to the party.

According to the CCP’s labor division, the Taoist Association would recruit college graduates to join each year, with the vacant position requiring “cultivating patriotic (CCP-loving) senior Taoist talents.” Some recruitment criteria include a “high degree of unity” with the party, a firm belief in the core of Xi’s ideology, politics, and actions, and explicitly being “passionate about the cause of the united front.”

In addition, Mr. Zhuge noted that the Taoist Association has the sole and absolute right to interpret Taoist doctrines as a party’s mouthpiece. Its president, Li Guangfu, often elaborates on tenets in the official media, modifying the meaning of the Taoist idea of “returning to one’s true self” and asserting that “cultivating the hereafter” is a nihilistic idea.

“Some of the Taoism teachings have been replaced by the party ideology of the CCP, ” Mr. Zhuge said.

Jane Tao contributed to this article.