Written by Dolma Tsering.
Image credit: Dalai Lama besøker Stortinget by Venstre/ Flickr, license: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Taiwan is known as the beacon of democracy, and its competitive democratic principles and practices distinguish it from authoritarian China. Advocacy for promoting religious freedom is one of the important tasks undertaken by the government. For instance, as a part of this advocacy, in 2018, President Tsa Ing-Wen announced that Taiwan would donate US$200,000 per year for five years to the United States’ International Religious Freedom Fund as a part of Taiwan’s contribution to advancing global religious freedom. The government, annually in association with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), hosts an international forum for religious freedom to establish a more inclusive society in Taiwan. However, on 6th June 2023, more than 112 Tibetan Buddhist centres in Taiwan joined a press conference which called for the government’s unfair treatment of visa restrictions for Tibetan Buddhist monks in Taiwan and therefore demanded an amendment to the existing visa restriction. In 2008, a similar petition was sent to President Ma Ying Jeou by the Lopen Tenzin Jigme Rinpoche, who had built one of the biggest Kagyue monasteries in Taiwan.
A Resurgence of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan
Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan started developing after the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party) relocated to Taiwan in 1949. The authoritarian system limited the growth of Tibetan Buddhists in Taiwan from 1950-late 1990s. A breakthrough was achieved when the Dalai Lama made his first visit to Taiwan in 1997. As per the report published by Panorama magazine in Taiwan, the Dalai Lama’s first and second spiritual talk in Taiwan attracted about 50,000 and about 20,000 audiences, and his visit sparked a new interest in Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan. Today the total number of Tibetan Buddhist followers in Taiwan stands at about half a million population and based on a book published by the Ministry of Culture, as of 2018, there are 473 Tibetan Buddhist centres in Taiwan, and the number increased from 82 in 1996. The number of Tibetan Buddhist monks’ entries in Taiwan for religious purposes continued to increase until recently; there was a sharp decline in numbers. For instance, the number of Tibetan Buddhist monks that entered Taiwan increased from 1271 in 2010 to 2014 in 2018. However, after the covid pandemic, the number fell sharply to 415 in 2020; in 2022, it further declined to 173.
Issue Concerning Tibetan Buddhist Monks in Taiwan and Its Unintended Consequences
According to Article 6 of the “Regulations Governing Visiting, Residency, and Permanent Residency of Aliens (RGVRPR),
‘A stateless person who entered Taiwan with a visitor visa may not apply for residency. If a particular individual holds a valid visa whose duration of stay is at least 60 days and has not been prohibited from extending the duration of stay or any other restriction or has special circumstances verified by other government agencies commissioned by competent authorities shall not be excluded.
Tibetan Buddhist monks that enter Taiwan for religious purposes consist of four kinds. First are the Tibetan refugees who enter Taiwan with Identity Certificates (IC), a travel document issued by the Indian government for Tibetan refugees to travel outside India. Second, is the Tibetan Buddhist monk from Nepal, with a Nepalese passport; third, Tibetan Buddhist monks who have surrendered their refugee status and adopted Indian citizenship, therefore with an Indian passport and finally, the Tibetan Buddhist monk from Bhutan with a Bhutanese passport.
For Tibetan refugees, as per the RGVRPR, the government of Taiwan issues a visitor visa with an annotation stating, ‘this visa is non-extendable and non-changeable. Irrespective of what purpose or duration of stay in Taiwan, Tibetan refugees are not eligible for other visas except visitor visas. This limitation means the government prohibits Tibetan refugees from applying for residence, work, religious and study visas. About 90 per cent of Tibetan refugees travelling to Taiwan constitute monks. Tibetan refugees travelling with IC in other countries do not face such restrictions as in the case of Taiwan. A point worth noting is that this restriction imposed on Tibetan refugees is also implemented on Tibetan Buddhist monks who are citizens of India, Nepal, and Bhutan.
The petition filed on 6th June 2023 highlights the two core issues associated with such visa restriction. The first is the financial burden and its impact on the future survival of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan. Provided that Tibetan Buddhist monks are eligible only for a two-month visa, and upon the expiry of the period, they should leave Taiwan and apply for a new visa and continue their religious work in Taiwan. This means he should leave the island territory six times a year and come back with a new visa six times a year. Financially, it dries a Buddhist centre about a hundred thousand USD yearly for monks’ travel expenses. For example, travel costs, including accommodation for one time from Taipei to Thailand or other countries such as India would cost at the minimum of 1300USD and for a year it cost about 8000USD. If a monk has been living in Taiwan for five years as there are many such cases, it cost about 39,000 USD or more. The centre bears the expenses of the Tibetan Buddhist master and is largely accumulated from donations provided by followers. Generally, a centre would have more than a monk to lead all the religious activities, including teaching. Therefore, the total budget only for monks’ travel expenses would cost about a hundred thousand USD annually. One of the monks interviewed by the author said that the survival budget of Tibetan Buddhist centres in Taiwan is double that of other religious institutions. The press conference argued that some centres had been forced to close down due to financial burdens, which will eventually negatively impact the future survival of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan. There is no data about such a decline in Buddhist centres. However, based on data published by the MTCC about the entries of Tibetan Buddhist monks in Taiwan for religious purposes, there has been no growth since 2003, and it witnessed a sharp decline since 2019, and visa restrictions is one of the reasons.
Second is the unfair treatment towards Tibetan Buddhist monks as these restrictions do not apply to other religions, and therefore it is a violation of human rights and a breach of democratic principles of equal treatment. Visa restriction imposed on Tibetan Buddhist monks based on the RGVRPR is not convincing because Tibetan Buddhist monks who are not stateless are treated the same as Tibetan refugees. Tibetan Buddhist monks who are citizens of India, Nepal and Bhutan are restricted from applying for religious visas and resident permits. They are also eligible only for two months’ visa restriction, as was the case for Tibetan refugees. Therefore, the current border security targets all Tibetan Buddhist monks irrespective of their legal status and nationality. They are unanimously subjected to the same rigorous visa process and restriction. In contrast to Tibetan Buddhist monks, other religious masters and missionaries can apply for religious and work visas. Subsequently are eligible for residence and other rights entitled to foreigners in Taiwan. In 2006, the government of Taiwan launched a major crackdown on fake lamas. The fake lama constitutes Tibetan and Chinese nationalities from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) who disguise themselves as monks and enter Taiwan with Nepal passports.
Additionally, the same report further mentioned that many of these passports were issued from the Nepal consular office in Beijing. However, such a case is not found with Tibetan Buddhist monks with IC holders and Tibetan Buddhist monks who are citizens of India and Bhutan. Therefore, even though this is a serious concern, it is absurd to treat all Tibetan Buddhist monks as a threat to national security, especially when the government has clear evidence of the source of the threat.
In conclusion, Tibetan Buddhism has been facing serious systematic repression in China; however, because of the change in the political system of Taiwan from an authoritarian to a liberal democratic system, there was a rapid resurgence of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan. With half a million followers, Taiwan has one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist followers outside China. Taiwan’s current dilemma with Tibetan Buddhist monks results from the complex nexus of two main issues; concern over national security and the prevention of illegal overstay of refugees. In the long run, the visa restriction imposed on Tibetan Buddhist monks will negatively impact the future survival of those centres as it has already forced a few centres to close down, and there has been no growth in the total number of Tibetan Buddhist monks entering Taiwan since 2003. Therefore, through such systematic border restrictions, the government is limiting overall religious activities, and it is indirectly impacting the rights of religious freedom. As proposed by the petitioner, if the government could not consider providing a residence permit, as a conservative estimate, the government can extend the visa for up to six months. In such cases, it will help solve some of the financial burden. It is also a serious concern that the fact that the government treated other Tibetan Buddhist monks similarly to stateless is an act of arbitrary deprivation of nationality. Tibetan Buddhist monks face serious challenges from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Dolma Tsering is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University.
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