Born: 1958, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Birth name: Huang Rong-xiang (黃榮享)
Also known as: Master Hai Tao (海濤法師; hǎi tāo fǎshī); His Eminence Hai Tao; Hai Tao Lama
Roles:
Master Hai Tao is a Buddhist cleric and televangelist. He has been a pivotal actor in the merger of Han and Tibetan Buddhism and in particular, the fate of Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje. He is a monk in the reformist stream of “Humanistic Buddhism” shaped by the state-controlled Buddhist Association of China (BAC) and promulgated in Mainland China and Taiwan.
Hai Tao was born and raised in a family which followed a traditional Chinese folk religion, and while at school converted to Christianity, which he followed with fervour until his early 30s. In 1982 he graduated from the Department of Tourism at Taiwan’s University of Chinese Culture. He married Huang Wenying (黄文瑛), had a son (Huang Yilun; 黃名黃), and for around 10 years struggled to earn a living operating a travel agency. His business eventually failed leaving Hai Tao bankrupt, but the experience would prove useful for the duties he would later accept in service of China’s ‘Soft Power.’
Through an amazing metamorphosis, he would divorce due to “interpersonal problems” with his wife and leave his son behind (although with his consent, he claims), to become a Buddhist monk. According to his official biography, things started in 1991 when he took the refuge vow with the Han monk Fa Zhen (法振) (1915-2016). In 1993 he received his full monastic ordination with Jie De (戒德) (1901-2011).
After travelling extensively in South East Asia to learn the Theravada path, Hai Tao then became a zealous disciple in the stream of Humanistic Buddhism, stating for instance in 1996: “In Taiwan, our Bodhisattva Path is the real implementation of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, that we call “Humanistic Buddhism.” Nevertheless, in the early years of his monkhood he was still happy to join the Dalai Lama during his first trip to Taiwan in 1997 (during the presidency of Lee Teng-hui) and to pray with him.
In 1997 Hai Tao commenced his path to fame by approaching senior executives of the recently established “Dharma Satellite” (法界衛星; fajiè wèixīng), one of Taiwan’s fledgling satellite TV stations promoting Buddhist preachers, to pitch his talents. Embellishing his CV as a top graduate of the prestigious Fuyan Buddhist Institute (福嚴佛學院) founded by the revered master Yin Shun (印順) (1906-2005), Hai Tao managed to gain the trust of the executives, who agreed to broadcast his preaching.
The TV station very quickly understood Hai Tao’s telegenic capacity to impact the audience, and not only allowed him to preach for over eight hours a day, but within six months promoted him to Director. Being capable of staying on air for eight hours of uninterrupted preaching daily, Hai Tao was able to attract many Buddhist followers, as well as their donations. He also embarked on a schedule of lectures, including in schools and prisons. Within a few short years, he established his presence in Taiwan’s Buddhist Circles.
However, Hai Tao’s ambition was not satisfied, and the rise of his popularity was not fast enough. He attempted to seize control of Dharma Satellite, whose brand recognition had quickly become tied to his own preaching. Throughout 1998 he clashed with the other executives, demanding greater control over direction of the station in order to increase profits and meet the demands of investors. At the very least, he insisted on twelve hours a day for his preaching, but the station’s chief refused, not wanting the station to become a vehicle for Hai Tao’s personal business ambitions. By the end of 1998 Hai Tao parted ways with the station that had raised him from obscurity, to pursue even greater fame and fortune.
Hai Tao then approached Master Xintian (心田法師) (b.1935), the founder of another station “Buddhism Satellite TV” (佛教卫星电视台; fójiào wèixīng diànshìtái), which had been established in 1996, shortly before Dharma Satellite. Hai Tao persuaded the old monk to let him be the Director. Here, Hai Tao could further pursue his ambition to transform his viewing audience into disciples by channeling them mainly towards two types of ritual: “Infant Spirit Salvation” (超度婴灵; chāodù yīnglíng), and “Life Release” (放生; fàngshēng).
Concerning the first of these rituals, it should be noted that one third of all pregnancies in modern Taiwan end in abortion, and perhaps half of Taiwanese women have terminated a pregnancy at least once in their lives. Many Taiwanese women turn to religious clerics who practice Infant Spirit Salvation to appease the ghosts of their aborted children and assuage feelings of guilt. The ritual grew in popularity following the legalization of abortion in Taiwan in 1985. It draws from traditional Han antecedents as well as a similar Japanese practice. Hai Tao tells women who have had abortions that the infant’s spirit will take vengeance and create family disharmony or attach itself to the parent, causing pain or unexpected accidents.
Concerning the second ritual, releasing captive animals destined for slaughter into the wild is based on the Mahayana Buddhist creed of earning merits to get a better life, longevity, health, and prosperity, etc.
Hai Tao saw that he could leverage his fame to recruit more and more followers by promoting these rituals through TV. In particular, during his tenure at “Buddhism Satellite TV,” he started to set up dozens of “Life Release Centres” throughout Taiwan, harnessing the psychology of believers seeking healing, longevity, and childbirth etc., by advocating the benefits of Life Release. Although the original intention of the practice was to show compassion to caged creatures, the popularity of the ritual has fuelled a black market that does far more harm than good to wildlife. Moreover, mass Life Release often causes ecological damage, in complete contradiction to the supposed intention of the practice.
While at Buddhist Satellite TV, Hai Tao’s ambition resulted in the sidelining of other preachers, until he almost monopolised the schedule, so much so that it was dubbed a “one-man TV station.” Moreover, he started to advertise his own transfer account to solicit donations. In a new attempt to consolidate his control, Hai Tao renamed the station “Compassion TV” (慈悲電視台; cíbēi diànshìtái). Xintian, the monk who founded the station, although sharing Hai Tao’s credo of Humanistic Buddhism, became disturbed by his aggressive marketing and self-promotion. Finally, he couldn’t bear it any longer and asked Hai Tao to leave. Soon after, with much greater visibility, Hai Tao would create his own station, “LifeTV” named as such due to the focus on saving animals and assuaging the psychological effects of abortion.
In 2002, through his Life Release Centres, Hai Tao is said to have released more than 17 million animals in Taiwan, and the figure has multiplied since then. According to Next Magazine (壹週刊), by 2012 these Life Release Centres were carrying out mass Life Releases at a rate of 23 per month, easily generating a revenue of 10 million Taiwan Dollars (U.S. $340,000). After deducting miscellaneous expenses, and not accounting for any other revenue streams, Hai Tao’s Life Release business alone is said to have generated at least 100 Million Taiwan Dollars a year (U.S. $3.4 Million), for the previous five years running. In mid 2012 Hai Tao’s net worth had reportedly already exceeded 500 Million Taiwan Dollars (U.S. $17 Million).
But what has been the cost to local ecosystems and indeed the animals supposedly being saved?
In the Southeast Asian caged bird trade, for each dozen birds captured, transported and sold, only one is likely to survive. So, in order to release one bird, at least ten more die. On 23 June 2003, Chung Ming Park in Taichung was found strewn with dead sparrows after one of Hai Tao’s groups released over 3,000 sparrows at once, causing many of them to crash into a wall and die. In 2004 the Taiwan Animal Society Research Association, the Kaohsiung City Teachers’ Association Ecological Education Centre and the Taipei Bird Club jointly announced their report into bird trafficking and bio-research, stating that a particular bird shop in Liucheng (in Fujiang on the mainland, opposite the Taiwan strait) was connected with Buddhist groups, and the biggest buyer was Hai Tao.
A report in Taiwan’s Apple Daily explained that in 2005 Hai Tao expanded his Life Release activities abroad. By the end of that year his overseas annual Life Release schedule exceeded 30, including in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macao, Beijing, Indonesia and other places. When added to the domestic Taiwanese program, the number reached hundreds.
Reporters from Apple Daily followed him to Aceh province in Indonesia, where he had organized a release ceremony dedicated to the victims of the 2004 Tsunami. The victims not only received 100 “red envelopes” (containing monetary donations), but also 500 caged birds which Hai Tao’s team had brought to Aceh by air. However, by the time of the ceremony 60% of the birds had died. Most of the animals were purchased in bulk quantities from trappers in the Indonesian city of Medan.
The ritual, apparently the first of its kind in Indonesia, took place an open space, with a Buddhist altar surrounded by believers at one end, and at the other cages of lifeless birds crawling with insects. 300 of the 500 purchased had died, and the believers had to dig holes to bury the dead ones.
Hai Tao preached the benefits of Life Release, explaining that if people are sick at home and support the practice, they would not have to take medicine and their disease would be cured. At the end of the event, the believers lined up to offer hundreds of red envelopes containing donations. According to Apple Daily’s investigation, Hai Tao raised at least a million Taiwan Dollars a month.
In 2012 several people in Taiwan’s Yilan County (where Life TV has its base of operations) encountered wildlife not native to the region: it emerged that Hai Tao’s followers who had become “addicted to the practice” had released over 100kg of cobras into the area. In 2014 Hai Tao and his followers released 55,000 black sea bream into the sea in Qijin district, southern Taiwan, prompting a rush of anglers going out the very next day to capture the fish. The action attracted a protest by civic groups concerned about ecological damage and the threat to non-native species by releasing non-native wildlife. The protesters used slogans such as "using money to buy life is not equal to doing good."
These practices were not limited only to Taiwan and Asia, however. Following Hai Tao’s visit to the U.K. in June 2015 which involved a life release at Brighton Marina, British authorities investigated the illegal release of £5,000 worth of live, non-native lobsters, which caused "untold damage" to the local ecosystem. While Hai Tao himself avoided prosecution, two of his followers took the fall in court and were heavily fined.
In 2017 Taiwan’s Mirror Media released an exposé concerning the mistreatment of animals in one of Hai Tao’s “Nursing Parks” set up to house larger animals such as cows, pigs and chickens supposedly “rescued” by Hai Tao and his followers. This park, established by Hai Tao’s Life Foundation in Meishan, Chiayi County, was said to accommodate over 200 dogs, nearly 100 cows, and 10 pigs, kept in cramped and unhygienic conditions.
The transgressions detailed by Mirror Media (here and here) included: huge accumulations of pungent animal excrement flowing into the roads; stray dogs inhabiting the premises suffering from serious skin diseases; pigs with insufficient drinking facilities drinking their own urine; dead chickens littering the scene “full of flies and bugs”; diseased cows in wooden cages; and open mass graves for animals, dug to save on costs of refrigeration or cremation, producing contagious odours which were causing secondary infections in other animals.
Unfortunately, although the apparent motivation for Hai Tao’s activities such as “life release” seems good (and indeed this motivation is most likely why so many have followed him), if it was genuine, he wouldn’t have continued to participate in the industrial trafficking of birds, seeded environmental catastrophes by mixing incompatible species, or allowed his “Nursing Park” to be transformed into a Dantesque inferno for animals. With such a dubious motivation in this sphere of activity, wouldn’t the same apply to the other main focus of Hai Tao’s enterprise, i.e. his involvement in conciliating Tibetan Vajrayana and Han Mahayana Buddhism, a topic which will be examined next.
A major turning point for Hai Tao came with his relationship to Master Kok Kwong (釋覺光) (1919-2014), president of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association, who was deeply tied to the core forces of China’s Buddhist revival under the direction of the of the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). Due to Kok Kwong’s personal relationship with the 16th Karmapa, he could convince Hai Tao direct his own activities to develop a privileged relationship with the China-approved successor, Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje. In this way, Hai Tao could exercise influence over him, something that Kok Kwong would loved to have done with the 16th Karmapa but was prevented from, due to the previous Karmapa’s death in 1981.
In November 2002, Hai Tao’s relation with Kok Kwong had matured enough for him to decide to honour Hai Tao by bestowing the Tiantai school transmission at his Kun Chung temple in Hong Kong. Immediately afterwards, Kok Kwong channelled Hai Tao towards the new patriotic Karmapa who had only just been permitted by Indian security to travel outside of Dharamsala where he had been under virtual house arrest since his arrival in January 2000, to visit the Indian Buddhist pilgrimage sites of Sarnath and Bodhgaya.
It would have been difficult – for security reasons – for the first meeting between Hai Tao and Ogyen Trinley Dorje to have taken place in Dharamsala, because of the “Z plus level” security provided by the Indian government. Sarnath near Varanasi however would prove to be suitable. Firstly because the senior Tibetan lama Thrangu Rinpoche, who was closely connected to Kok Kowng, has his temple there, and secondly the still minor Ogyen Trinley Dorje had some free time to dedicate to visitors in advance of the Dalai Lama’s grand "Kalachakra" ceremony taking place in Bodhgaya in early 2003. As such, the very moment that Indian authorities loosened their security, Hai Tao was able to gain access. This was extremely important for Beijing, so as not to lose any more time in asserting its extra-territorial control over Ogyen Trinley Dorje, adapted to the new situation in India.
Hai Tao recalls this first meeting in glowing terms: “Karmapa gave me a lot of time and compassion. One morning, we even talked about everything and exchanged for about two hours”; “He has also written a piece of auspicious calligraphy and made a painting to me”; “He speaks very well Chinese”; “He cares very much for Chinese Buddhism”; “He will be the future leader of the world!” etc.
In short, wasting no time after his anointment by Kok Kwong, Hai Tao would enter into a very close relationship with Ogyen Trinley Dorje that would intensify continuously, up to 2016. This pivotal connection, starting at the turn of 2003, would prove the effectiveness of Bejing’s strategy to take advantage of the religious pledge of allegiance given by Tibetans to their lamas, which is present in the Vajrayana (Tibetan) but not in the Mayahana heritage.
In this context, Hai Tao’s duty has been to execute this strategy of control consisting of the substitution of Han masters for Tibetan lamas, with the complicity of the latter. However, for this strategy to be fully implemented, Hai Tao had to be formally accredited by the mainland Chinese authorities.
The practical path chosen by Hai Tao to perform his task blends tourism (his previous lay business and profession) and satellite television. Hai Tao sought advice to commercially exploit his ideas while remaining within the margins of Buddhist ethics. For instance, he met with Master Sheng Yen in February 2003, already with a group of disciples following him. Sheng Yen received him with Prof. Lee Chih-fu, the director of the Chinese Buddhist Institute. Hai Tao sought cooperation with the Institute because from his point of view, satellite TV stations operated by Buddhist groups at the time mainly broadcast cultural programs and lacked fully Buddhist religious content, and he saw the opportunity to pioneer this. Soon afterwards, Hai Tao was lucky enough to find all the financial resources, means and know-how to create his 24-hour Buddhist TV channel entitled LifeTV based in Taiwan and transmitting throughout the Chinese-speaking world.
Anyone in Mainland China wishing to perform religious work has to be accredited, otherwise the activity is unlawful and liable for criminal prosecution. It would have been impossible to for Hai Tao merely to preach Mahayana Buddhism to Han disciples and develop business on the Mainland without accreditation by the Buddhist Association of China (BAC). But on top of this, due his plans to work with Ogyen Trinley Dorje who was – and still is – a member of the BAC (recognised at central governmental level as an overseas Chinese cleric), Hai Tao had to attain an equivalent level of accreditation and associated governmental duties, necessarily placing himself under the direct control of the highest authorities in Beijing.
So before approaching Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Hai Tao sought official BAC clearance, which he obtained in Beijing on 29 September 2005. His accreditation with BAC president Yi Cheng (一诚) (1927-2017) in person, doubled by his heir apparent and executive, Vice President Xue Cheng (学诚) (b.1966), shows the level of face and confidence the central government placed in Hai Tao. Additionally, he received accreditation by Qi Xiaofei (齐晓飞) (b.1957), Deputy Director of the PRC’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), demonstrating that he was correctly backed for such a venture. This also indicates strongly that Hai Tao would play a tutoring role over Ogyen Trinley Dorje.
The second clearance Hai Tao had to secure was more private, and related to another key figure in Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s fate, the veteran pro-Beijing Taiwanese politician Chen Li-an, so as to coordinate effectively and not to step on his toes. Up until Hai Tao’s appearance in the frame, Chen Li-an and his Hwayue Foundation executives were the only Chinese openly connected with Ogyen Trinley Dorje in India. Hai Tao’s arrival had to be harmonised with them, taking into account their antecedent presence in order not to disturb the work already accomplished in their own right. Hai Tao managed this successfully, prior to organising his first interview with Ogyen Trinley Dorje. Chen Li-an and his partner Sun Chun-hua met with Hai Tao at his temple-cum-studio in Yilan County in October 2005, with the result that the Hwayue Foundation's Khenpo Tengye and Miao Rong would continue their role as Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s translation secretariat and Hwayue would retain its rightful stake in terms of donations.
Actually, despite all the investment of Chen Li-an in the promotion of Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Hai Tao was much more efficient. He managed not to disturb the existing relationship, although he largely took the lead over it. Hai Tao’s rationale was that Chen Li-an, being a layman, could only ever have the role of a disciple, whereas Hai Tao himself being a monk, could be a colleague. From a marketing point of view, he was right.
As an indication of the critical level of responsibility and expectations vested in Hai Tao by the Chinese authorities, as well as the degree of his accomplishment in the ensuing years, in 2010 Hai Tao welcomed to his Yilan County temple-cum-studio an inspection tour from the mainland Chinese authorities in his capacity as BAC-accredited Buddhist televangelist. The two main officials were Xue Yuanjie (徐远杰), a senior SARA executive, and BAC Vice President Zeng Qin (增勤) (b. 1962). The latter was the very official who welcomed and guided French President Emmanuel Macron in Xian during his official visit in January 2018, and who also offered the presidential religious gift to Indian PM Narendra Modi, in front of Leader Xi Jinping. In terms of Chinese “face-giving,” this speaks volumes about the political trust Hai Tao had earned.
Hai Tao was now ready to meet publicly and officially with Ogyen Trinley Dorje. This would take place on 28 December 2005, in Sarnath, but this time with his team of technician monks and first large group of followers, to whom Ogyen Trinley Dorje granted a long private audience. On 30 December Ogyen Trinley Dorje would host Hai Tao for lunch as a guest of honour, after which Hai Tao would proceed with a first test interview with Thrangu Rinpoche, translated by Khenpo Tengye.
Two special monks also accompanied Hai Tao: Chuan Xi (傳喜) (b. 1967) and Su Quan (素全) (b. 1967). In subsequent years Chuan Xi would be seen many times next to Hai Tao as a colleague, although independent. Chuan Xi is not a fully-fledged “Red Prince,” but perhaps more a “Red Count” due to his father, a local Communist Party Chairman in Shanghai, who counted in his guanxi Marshal Chen Yi (陈毅) (1901-72), a pillar of Mao’s war machine. Su Quan is also an official actor of the Communist regime. In 2002, he was part of UFWD special training for executive Buddhist clerics and in 2005 he graduated from the Central Institute of Socialism with a special qualification for religious clerics. As a symbol, Hai Tao’s delegation offered a metallic stupa to Ogyen Trinley Dorje, conceived and produced by the BAC, which his displayed on his desk during the interview.
After his successful warm-up interview with Thrangu Rinpoche, the first interview with Ogyen Trinley Dorje took place on 2 January 2006, also translated by Khenpo Tengye (although Ogyen Trinley Dorje is quite fluent in Mandarin). During the interview, Ogyen Trinley Dorje gave a straightforward answer to a crystal-clear question about the “merging” of Vajrayana with Mahayana, asked by Hai Tao. The question alone says everything about Hai Tao’s mission:
Hai Tao: we see that His Holiness has great respect for Chinese Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism which starts now to become more popular in the Vajrayana world. These two forces look to combine with a relatively good karma; they share a very good teaching heritage. How to combine better Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism?
Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje: From an historical point of view, the Chinese and Tibetans, have very deep and long historical roots, namely regarding the Buddhist culture. (…) Like old friends, we can help each other in a new career, going beyond mere talk. So not only should we feel in line with history, but we have also to make the world see the fusion of the two important sources of Buddhism, Mahayana and Vajrayana. This is very, very important.
To return the greatest face possible to Hai Tao, right from the beginning, Ogyen Trinley Dorje would also make him his religious guest of honour during several outdoor ceremonies as well as indoor practices and rituals, placing at the same level the representatives of Tibetan Vajrayana and Han Mahayana.
Regarding Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s introduction of a brand-new Han ritual “puja” of Guan Gong, the fierce idol known as the most symbolic of Han identity, while Ogyen Trinley Dorje claims it to be a protector of Tsurphu monastery, such information is yet to be confirmed by scholars. However, one question can be answered: how can it be understood that in an interview about his first 2003 meeting with Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Hai Tao already compared the latter with Guan Gong?
“I feel like Karmapa Ogyen Trinley is an incarnation of Guan Gong, because Guan Gong is the guardian of Chinese Buddhism. His role is to care about China. If China is good, the world will be good.”
Guan Gong became a new cult imposed in Karma Kagyu centres, to the delight of Hai Tao and Thrangu Rinpoche. The wish of Ogyen Trinley Dorje to see the Karma Kagyu traditions absorbed by Chinese standards went even to the point of dressing himself in Han monk uniform and accepting for the picture to be disseminated for veneration among Hai Tao’s followers. Rumour has it that to do so, he exchanged his robes with Hai Tao.
The collaborative – and highly lucrative – venture between Hai Tao and Ogyen Trinley Dorje persisted for a decade (2006-2016), during which time, Ogyen Trinley Dorje-related programming was a twice-daily fixture on LifeTV, with sermons, documentaries, or interviews broadcast every morning and evening. The impact this had on Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s brand recognition and fame throughout Asia (and the corresponding financial benefits accruing to him) cannot be underestimated. It also explains the honour with which Hai Tao was treated by Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s team for so long.
As mentioned above, the practical path chosen by Hai Tao to perform his duty relied on satellite television, broadcasting 24/7 throughout the Chinese-speaking world. However, he recognised the fact his programming needed to remain engaging, involving his audience in more than just listening to his sermons, or participating in rituals such as mass "life release". As such, Hai Tao soon began to draw on his previous education and lay business experiences in the tourism sector as a way to diversify revenue streams and harness more efficiently the largesse of his following, towards his duties in service of China’s soft power.
Although he was bankrupt and unsuccessful in private business, Hai Tao understood that he had a great potential for success with captive clientele, and he found this with his Buddhist followers. So, soon after having been anointed by Kok Kwong, his first meeting with Ogyen Trinley Dorje opened the door to a wider market.
To start with, he could he bring his Taiwanese followers to new foreign countries where Ogyen Trinley Dorje had been implemented (especially India, Europe and North America, extending his network through the overseas Chinese). His clientele grew in Mainland China and Malaysia thanks respectively to his colleagues Chaun Xi in Shanghai and the ultra-rich Malaysian couple Loo Chooi Ting and Wong Yeon Chai (notorious as the “king of illegal timber in peninsular Malaysia” due to engaging in unlawful logging in the name of the Malaysian royal family).
Later, having brought his fervent and very wealthy Taiwanese and Chinese followers on overseas pilgrimages (especially to temples, centers, and other socio-religious projects requiring significant investment), he could reciprocate, inviting his Himalayan beneficiaries to Taiwan. Tibetan lamas of various sects and ranks of seniority have happily agreed to be trained by Hai Tao, merging seamlessly into the use of Han rituals and etiquette.
The model proved so successful that in the space of a few years, Hai Tao could multiply these pilgrimages and diversify the followers accompanying him, as well as the number and rate of journeys. This was the ideal platform for him to undertake his governmental duty on behalf of Beijing: a win-win strategy.
The more essential meaning of Hai Tao’s sudden fame and respect by SARA and BAC resides also in his proven capacity to subdue the followers of the Karma Kagyu sect and also those of the Nyingma, Gelug and Sakya sects, promoting an image of the great Himalayan lamas as Han-subordinated teachers.
The most telling illustration of this new religious power took place in Bhutan. With the help of his Malaysian sponsor Loo Chooi Ting, Hai Tao would leapfrog ahead to enjoy a lifestyle of greater luxury and open political significance, even meeting with Bhutan's Fifth King and Prime Minister. Loo Chooi Ting is a senior executive of the Hai Tao Life Foundation, the Malaysian arm of the media enterprise established by Hai Tao. She and her husband also became prominent benefactors of Ogyen Trinley Dorje and his Kagyu Monlam.
Loo Chooi Ting had established a link with the late Bhutanese lama of the Nyingma sect Khenpo Karpo (1934-2017), who since 2005 had embarked on an ambitious project to construct the world’s tallest statue of the Buddhist saint, Padmasambhava in Lheuntse, Eastern Bhutan. It was via Karpo that the contact was made to Bhutan’s ruling elite. The reciprocal “giving of face” continued when Karpo was brought to Taiwan later that year in November, for an event in which he officiated over a Sino-Tibetan ritual, broadcast via LifeTV, in which Hai Tao was crowned with the “Lotus Hat,” tantric headgear usually reserved for senior lamas of the Nyingma sect.
From 2009-15, Hai Tao travelled annually to Bhutan, often more than once per year, in connection with his ongoing sponsorship of Karpo’s giant statue. Together with his expanding entourage, he continued to be received at the highest levels of society, taking full advantage of this channel of influence. Hai Tao even started to grant blessings and to perform Vajrayana rituals, with ever-increasing self-assurance. In accord with the substantial funding by Hai Tao and his organisation, Karpo wouldn’t skimp on the public honours bestowed on his Han benefactor, who would soon come to believe, very seriously, that he became the reincarnation of a 14th Century saint called Terton Sherab Mebar.
Hai Tao had already started to allow himself epithets such as “lama,” and “His Eminence,” usually reverential terms reserved for Tibetan teachers. However, as his credentials did not match the stringent BAC criteria for a Tibetan “Living Buddha,” he could not simply have himself declared a “tulku” or “Rinpoche” in the Tibetan context. Bhutan offered a way to circumvent these requirements, and the idea seems to have emerged in the Spring of 2013 when Hai Tao came to the Ugyen Guru temple, at Pangbisa near Paro, which enshrines the relics of Terton Sherab Mebar. It seems that Khenpo Karpo wouldn’t go as far as to agree to promoting Hai Tao as a “reincarnation,” and would be forbidden to do so on Bhutanese territory under the country's stringent religious norms and standards. Hai Tao needed to find an alternative Bhutanese figure who would cooperate, given the right incentives. He managed this in November 2015.
Hai Tao and Chuan Xi were received with honour in Thimpu by Jamgoen Lama (also known as Pema Ugyen Namdrol Jatsho) of Bhutan’s “Nyingma Foundation.” An agreement was reached: for Chuan Xi, Jamgoen Lama issued a long-life prayer in which he, a Han Mahayana monk is praised as “practising Vajrayana, Mantrayana and holding vajra,” and for Hai Tao he would visit Taiwan at the appropriate time to officiate an enthronement ceremony. This eventually happened in Hai Tao’s centre in Taipei in December 2016.
Hai Tao, with the substantial financial support of his networks within China, Taiwan and Malaysia, has worked to create the conditions for a favourable shift in perception of the inhabitants of Bhutan towards China. Few Himalayan Buddhist leaders targeted by Hai Tao have proved resistant to his advances. At the same time, Bhutan’s relations with China intensified, with visits of cultural delegations and even cleverly organised military encroachment.
A similar format has been repeated in many other places: from Toronto to Woodstock, from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur, etc. As well as wearing Himalayan tantric attire of various types, and employing classical Tibetan ritual implements such as bells and hand-drums, Hai Tao became recognisable for his own style of practice, having injected a new dynamism into Buddhism by agitating small flags and squirting holy water from luminous plastic spray bottles.
Up until 2016 Hai Tao was regularly seated as a guest of honour together with an ever-growing number of his BAC and SARA accredited colleagues each year at Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s grandiose operatic Kagyu Monlams in India. He also roamed Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s huge international network of centres and monasteries with his official blessing, preaching a message in compliance with Beijing’s accreditation.
After the summer of 2016 however, the friendship between Ogyen Trinley Dorje and Hai Tao seems to have come to an abrupt end. The final meeting between the two took place in Paris in June that year. Hai Tao was not invited to the 2017 Kagyu Monlam, and his role in the Guang Gong ritual was replaced by a representative of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association, Siu Kun.
While LifeTV continued for some time to air its regular twice-daily programming featuring Ogyen Trinley Dorje, by early 2019 he had been dropped from the network as a regular fixture.
The question still pending is what happened between the two previously faithful companions? According to the main function of Hai Tao, which has been to convey a huge amount of money to Ogyen Trinley Dorje and his religious network, one supposition would be that Ogyen Trinley Dorje, in connection with his hidden yet costly project to permanently depart from India and to obtain a foreign passport, solicited financial support directly for this purpose from Hai Tao? If so, a refusal by Hai Tao to entertain such a request would surely have been grounds for Ogyen Trinley Dorje to sever his connection.
