What is 'Zen' diplomacy? From Chinese monk to ambassador | OUPblog

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What is 'Zen' diplomacy? From Chinese monk to ambassador | OUPblog



This short piece of writing was commissioned by Oxford Scholarship Online editors a few months ago. I am glad it is published right after Chinese president Xi Jinping praised Yinyuan in his May 23 speech to a Japanese delegation. I asked the editor to add a paragraph at the end of my writing as a nice footnote to President Xi's mention of Yinyuan. However, it was too late because my writing has gone up to the publishing pipeline. Anyway, I posted the last paragraph I added below. By the way, the editor changed the title as well. It is more straightforward and I appreciated it.


"On the China side, Chinese leadership starts to realize the importance of Yinyuan as well. Just a few days ago (May 23, 2015), Chinese president Xi Jinping gave a speech in Beijing to 3,000 Japanese guests led by Toshihiro Nikai, chairman of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party's General Council, who delivered Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's personal letter to Xi during the meeting. This talk was widely viewed as a conciliatory gesture by both sides after the escalation of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute since 2012. In this talk, President Xi might have surprised everyone when he cited Yinyuan as an example of Sino-Japanese friendship and mentioned his knowledge of Yinyuan during his tenure as governor of Fujian province between 1999-2002. If we learn about the historical significance of Yinyuan in Sino-Japanese relationship as I have explained in my book, President Xi's recount of the Yinyuan story is just another modern reinvention of a Buddhist monk's adventure."