By Usman Khan

For the success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Chinese huge economic investments around south Asia.  Now china intends to use Buddhist diplomacy in countries like Sri Lanka. This may at first appear an odd combination. However, it shows several interrelated inclinations in China’s foreign policy pursuits and its rise on the world stage. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has worked hard to mitigate criticism of its policies and its increasing global presence by portraying itself as a benevolent power intent on improving the lives of its neighbors. To this end, the CCP’s strategic goals are increasingly advanced via “soft power” initiatives to sway others of China’s harmonious intentions.

Since the end of Sri Lanka’s 1983-2009 civil war, China’s economic presence has been a mainstay in the country. After the BRI’s inception in 2013, Chinese foreign direct investment and state-backed policy loans increased immensely, particularly represented by the port projects in Hambantota and Colombo, both of which are related to the nautical sphere of the BRI, known as the Maritime Silk Road. Yet China is not the only major power with interests in Sri Lanka and the South and Southeast Asian regions. China is using religious narratives to promote its soft power in Sri Lanka and bolster its image as a peaceful regional power.

Sri Lanka’s strategic place in the Indian Ocean ensures its significance to other regional and international powers, mostly those that make up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. The race is on to secure access and use of Sri Lanka’s port placements, trans-shipment routes, and prospective for naval bases. The Quad considers it essential to remove China’s presence in the country and to contain the CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) sway in the Indo-Pacific.

In spite of the CCP’s tough religious control within China’s borders, the Chinese government is increasingly working to circulate a positive narrative of its religious policies to preserve and augment its relations with countries that identify with those religions. This strategy supplements different foreign policy pursuits to persuade other countries to support Chinese interests without the use of coercion. Buddhist-majority countries like Sri Lanka have become the main objectives of this approach.

Definitely, due to the role of Buddhism as the primary religion in Sri Lanka, the government’s Buddhist Advisory Council and the remainder of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist clergy retain influence in the country’s domestic and foreign politics. Yet the position of Buddhism has had detrimental effects on ethnic and religious groups such as the Tamils and Muslims, and international human rights agencies and Western powers increasingly task Sri Lanka with addressing its faulty human rights framework before loans and investments are granted. Therefore, Sri Lanka has become progressively dependent on China, which holds a “pragmatic tactic” to lending under the BRI framework.

Away from economic clout, China has endeavored to position itself as a trusted partner to its religious neighbors by utilizing “strategic narratives” rooted in “classic” Chinese religions like Buddhism. In Sri Lanka, China’s narratives are forwarded by its extensive Buddhist diplomacy, which is carried out through high-level visits, joint religious events, and gifts and donations. The narratives that China projects through these activities center on commemorating the historical Buddhist bonds between China and Sri Lanka that are framed as shared religious fates, ties, and values.

In a nutshell, China’s narratives attempt to establish a discourse concerning the continuation of religious cooperation between the two countries as a prerequisite. The BRI is promoted as a central part of strengthening Sri Lanka’s development, “bright future,” and in time, world peace. In brief, China’s rise in the international system has become dependent on perceptions of its ascent, and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is increasingly attempting to portray the country’s pursuits through a “benevolent religious” lens at least in places where these discourses have local cultural resonances.

Moreover, while the CCP’s simultaneous use of religious diplomacy and infrastructure investments under the BRI’s umbrella is part of the initiative’s original purview. The BRI has always been intended to be promoted through the concept of creating a “community of common destiny” set to secure China’s peaceful environment in order to facilitate its continued rise.

In other words, the goals of China’s concurrent use of religious narratives and infrastructure investments are simple: to pave the way for the BRI’s current implementation, future projects, and investments, as well as to ease potential criticism from influential Sri Lankan stakeholders. This holds important insinuations for the BRI’s progress in religious countries, particularly in South and Southeast Asia where the CCP is attempting to follow the same strategy.

While China’s religious diplomacy seems to have met with some success in Sri Lanka, different stakeholders in Sri Lanka have also shown significant agency in utilizing China’s religious narratives to serve their own national and international goals. Sri Lanka is increasingly utilizing religion in its foreign policy to mitigate criticism of its human rights issues related to the Tamil and Muslim populations. Through reproducing China’s narratives, the Sri Lankan government desires to secure valuable support from the public, and political elites.

Naturally, this is not a foolproof strategy, and China’s religious diplomacy is increasingly being criticized by Western analysts. Questions persist as to how the CCP can portray China as an atheist state while harnessing religious and cultural resources to serve its strategic interests abroad, as well as repressing its own ethnic and religious minorities at home. Yet so far, this has not dissuaded Sri Lanka from accepting China’s narratives of their shared faith in a “harmonious and peaceful Buddhist world.”

Finally, while it is certain that the new Sri Lankan government under the incumbent President and Prime Minister is continue to support China’s visions, as they are not stranger to working with the CCP.  Therefore, the CCP may find that its  strategy of and advance itself well to its strategic pursuits, though much continues to depend on the willingness and agency of BRI host countries in accepting China’s own narratives about its supposed “peaceful rise.”