Reuters Exposes China’s “secretive global campaign”

By Mary Trewartha / December 31, 2015;

Dorje Shugden deity being displayed by followers
Photo:Reuters

People attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in the West are often surprised and puzzled to see demonstrators gathered at the entrance, denouncing His Holiness and his teachings. These demonstrators are apparently Buddhists, often dressed in maroon monks’ robes, and their shouted slogans reach people as they quietly gather to see and hear the Dalai Lama. The protestors’ literature seems plausible and “monks” try to engage individuals in conversation as they arrive.

These protestors represent Shugden, a sect which claims it worships the deity Dorje Shugden, and the Buddhist world, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, and Tibetan communities have long suspected that the Chinese Communist Party has been supporting Shugden, seeing their unfounded allegations as a way of undermining His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Now the highly respected international media agency Reuters has published an exclusive report with evidence to show links between the Chinese government and the International Shugden Community.

Under the heading China co-opts a Buddhist sect in global effort to smear Dalai Lama, Reuters says “The Dorje Shugden movement gets clandestine support from the Communist Party. Their joint campaign to discredit the Tibetan spiritual leader is paying off, especially in Britain”. Reuters quotes an internal Communist Party document, issued to officials last year, which said the Shugden issue is “an important front in our struggle with the Dalai clique”.

Lama Tseta, a monk and prominent former member of Shugden told Reuters that China paid him and others to plan and coordinate the activities of the sect’s followers overseas. Tseta said the funding is controlled by the Communist Party’s powerful political special operations unit, the United Front Work Department, which directs the protests through senior Shugden monks in China and the Tibetan exile community in India and the West. One of their jobs is to recruit westerners to the Shugden movement.

“The Chinese are using them as a tool to make the Dalai Lama look fake, to achieve their own ends, to undermine Tibetan Buddhism and to fragment Tibetan society” said Tseta.

Reuters says that media coverage of the Dalai Lama’s visits to the west now regularly includes accusations from Shugden spokespeople. They also document briefings to alert western intelligence agencies to the “now serious potential threat to the Dalai Lama’s well-being”.

The Reuters article claims that China’s effort to neutralise the Dalai Lama is part of a systematic and often secretive global campaign to silence criticism abroad and bring the world around to its views.

Reuters has published the Chinese government’s response to their article: “China’s constitution stipulates that citizens have freedom of belief. The central government and government of the Tibet Autonomous Region fully respect the rights of citizens to freedom of belief. In Tibet, all religions and sects receive equal respect and protection, and normal religious activities and religious belief is protected by the law.”