Profile

Ye Xiaowen is a Chinese politician who held various key posts relating to state regulation of religion in China, as well as heading for several years the Party Committee of the Central Institute of Socialism, the highest institution to train Communist Party cadres. Between 1991 and 2009 he held senior roles within the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA).

Ye has been described as “a perfect representative of the idea that religions should be subservient to the power and supremacy of the Party”. While Director of SARA, effectively presiding over religion in China, he adapted policy to acknowledge that religion has a place in Chinese society, while persecuting and controlling groups that he thought brought foreign influence. He worked to secure Chinese churches’ independence from Rome and eradicate any disloyalty to the official Catholic Church in China. Clarifying his role in a press conference in Los Angeles in 2003, Ye famously explained “In China, the director of sports does not play sports; the director of tobacco does not smoke; and the director of religious affairs does not believe in any religion”.

In 1994, he was the leading UFWD official responsible for overseeing the appointment of Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, accompanying him to Beijing to formally enrol him into the Buddhist Association of China. A year later, as Head of SARA, Ye orchestrated the PRC’s appointment and accreditation of Gyaincain Norbu as the 11^th Panchen Lama. Both appointments were engineered as countermeasures against the influence of the Dalai Lama, to become leaders in China’s efforts to harness and adapt Buddhism in support of its policies in Tibet and soft power abroad.

In 2006 in the run-up to the first World Buddhist Forum, Ye rejected decades of state ambivalence toward religion by stating that religion, particularly Buddhism, has a “unique role in promoting a harmonious society”. In 2007 Ye introduced the infamous State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5, regulating the reincarnation of “living Buddhas” in Tibet to reduce foreign influence and presumably establish Beijing’s authority to recruit the next Dalai Lama. It increased vetting of temples that handle reincarnations and affirmed the illegality of reincarnations without state approval. After Ye Xiaowen’s promotion to the Central Institute of Socialism 2009, the Directorship of SARA passed to Wang Zuo’an.

Ye has played a leading role (Executive Director, then Vice President) in the highly nationalistic GONGO (Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisation), the China Association for Protection and Development of Tibetan Culture (CAPDTC), an offshoot of the UFWD which plays a key role in the ‘normalization’ of Tibet and foreign soft power outreach. For several years he also presided over the China Religious Culture Communication Association, another exercise in soft power outreach.

For decades, Ye has maintained a very close relationship with Hsing Yun, the influential Taiwanese Buddhist cleric and founder of the powerful Fo Guang Shan order which claims millions of followers worldwide. As SARA Director Ye was close at hand during Hsing Yun’s frequent visits to the mainland, and offered reciprocal visits to Taiwan. Hsing Yun and the mainland authorities have worked hand-in-hand since the 1980s to create the conditions for one of the PRC’s most fundamental objectives, the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. In 2013 Ye presented Hsing Yun with the “Chinese Cultural Person of the Year” award in a televised ceremony.

In 2015 Ye found himself on the receiving end of criticism from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who accused him and former senior UFWD official Zhu Weiqun of corruption in connection with the designation of ‘Living Buddhas’, alleging they financially benefited from the selling of the title during their tenures in SARA and UFWD respectively. By 2016 Ye had retired from political duties.

Network Links

• State Administration for Religious Affairs
  • Wang Zuo’an
  • Ren Wuzhi
  • Qi Xiaofei
• United Front Work Department
  • Zhu Weiqun
• Buddhist Association of China
  • Zhao Puchu
  • Panchen Lama Gyaincain Norbu
  • Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje
    
• Hsing Yun
• Sheng Yen
• Gangchen Tulku
• Tai Situ