The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long understood that power over ideas often outlasts power over arms. This means shaping what people believe, whom they trust, and which histories they remember. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Party’s sustained effort to assert control over religious traditions and historical narratives that it sees as sources of alternative authority. Among these, the case of Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, reveals both the sophistication and the limits of Beijing’s ideological strategy.
Beijing’s approach towards Buddhism in Tibet relies on three interconnected levers: co-opting religious institutions, constructing a state-centred narrative, and projecting influence abroad. These levers are intended to reduce Tibetan Buddhism to a manageable component of the state’s political order.
Since the late 1990s, the CCP has institutionalized its supervision of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibet Autonomous Region today has roughly 1,700 officially registered monasteries and around 46,000 monks and nuns. Each monastery is overseen by a government-approved management committee, and all senior monastic appointments require Party approval. The “patriotic education” sessions, intensified after the 2008 unrest in Lhasa, compels monks to denounce the Dalai Lama and pledge loyalty to the state. The clearest example of the state’s intervention is its claim to the right to approve the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. This bureaucratization of a sacred religious tradition reflects Beijing’s conviction that controlling succession is essential to neutralizing a figure who embodies Tibetan religious and political identity.
Narrative assertion is just as central to this effort. In textbooks, museums, and official media, the incorporation of Tibet into the People’s Republic in 1951 is described as a “Peaceful Liberation” that ended a feudal theocracy. The Party-state frequently highlights the billions of yuan spent on restoring monasteries, including over 2.6 billion yuan reportedly invested in cultural and religious heritage in the Tibet Autonomous Region between 2012 and 2020, to project an image of benevolent guardianship. Carefully choreographed images of monks thanking the Party for their prosperity reinforce this narrative. Yet exile groups and human rights organizations continue to document restrictions on monastic education, increased surveillance, and limits on pilgrimages, which cast doubt on the image of harmonious religious life promoted by the state.
Extending the Contest Abroad
Beijing has also worked to extend its version of Buddhism beyond China’s borders. It regularly funds international Buddhist conferences in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Nepal and supports university research centres across Asia that promote a vision of Buddhism aligned with Chinese state narratives. This effort is intended to present China, rather than the Tibetan diaspora, as the legitimate global centre of Buddhist thought and to diminish the influence of the Dalai Lama, who remains one of the most respected religious leaders worldwide.
Nonetheless, these levers while formidable, reveal the paradox at the heart of Beijing’s strategy. Ideological control imposed from above often produces compliance without conviction. In Tibet, despite decades of administrative oversight and propaganda, monastic resistance and quiet acts of defiance persist. For all these efforts, the CCP continues to struggle in winning genuine allegiances. Seventy years after the “liberation” of Tibet, the Dalai Lama still commands deep reverence among Tibetans, often expressed discreetly. The surge of over 150 self-immolation protests by Tibetans between 2009 and 2019, tragic acts that called for the Dalai Lama’s return, shows that compliance imposed by administrative measures has not translated into moral acceptance. Outside China, few Buddhist communities recognize Beijing’s claim to appoint the Dalai Lama’s successor. Instead of resolving the question of Tibet’s future, Beijing’s insistence on controlling reincarnation risks turning the succession into a major international flashpoint.
The Tibetan case highlights a broader truth. The CCP’s campaign is less about faith than about political legitimacy. By seeking to “Sinicize” religion, embedding it with what the Party calls “Chinese characteristics,” Beijing has invariably revealed its anxiety that spiritual traditions can mobilize loyalties beyond the reach of the Party-state. The more the CCP tries to control Tibetan Buddhism, the more it underscores the resilience of the tradition it hopes to subsume.
The struggle over Buddhism in Tibet is ultimately about who defines moral authority in China’s borderlands. The CCP’s levers of control demonstrate impressive reach but fragile depth. They show that political power without some measure of moral consent is inherently insecure, and that efforts to impose ideological control can sometimes strengthen the very traditions they aim to weaken.
