mandag 27. mars 2017

What a Buddhist Monk Taught Xi Jinping


In 1982, two men arrived in this dusty provincial town. One was Shi Youming, a Buddhist monk who was taking up a post in the ruins of one of Zhengding’s legendary temples. The other was Xi Jinping, the 29-year-old son of a top Communist Party official putting in a mandatory stint in the provinces as a bureaucrat in the government he would eventually lead. The two forged an unusual alliance that resonates today. With Mr. Xi’s backing, Youming, who like most Buddhist monks preferred to go by one name, rebuilt the city’s Linji Temple, the birthplace of one of the best-known schools of Buddhism. Even after Mr. Xi was transferred, he regularly visited Youming in Zhengding and sent officials there to study the partnership between the party and religion. Read more