Several other religious groups followed suit by saying they did not welcome the Dalai Lama’s visit.
Among them, the Chinese leadership must be particularly grateful to Venerable Master Hsing Yun (星雲), founder of the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order.
Despite his professed wish to spend more time writing books behind closed doors, Hsing Yun chose an interesting moment to agree to a joint interview with Chinese media in Taiwan, in which he listed a number of reasons why the Dalai Lama should not have come. Hsing Yun’s performance will likely attract plenty of Chinese tourist pilgrims to his Fo Guang Shan monastery.
Finally, we must mention the pro-unification groups who did their duty by following the Dalai Lama wherever he went and holding raucous protests.
Protests against the Dalai Lama are nothing new, but this time the demonstrators managed to get within a meter or so of the monk, which must be a world-record close encounter.
These political parties and media, civic and religious groups are just some of the nodes that make up a wide-reaching network of people in Taiwan for whom a thorn in China’s side is a thorn in their own, and who take China’s standard of human rights as their benchmark.
We ought to thank the Dalai Lama, who, with his wisdom, humor and compassion, lured these people out of the shadows. The majority of Taiwanese who identify with Taiwan and uphold its right to sovereignty and independence need to be aware of such people and communicate with them.
Yao Jen-to is an associate professor in the Institute of Sociology at National Tsing Hua University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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