China to build a Tibetan Buddhism academy in Tibet

from the indian news website http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=145194

THE CHINESE government has decided to set up a high level institute in Lhasa. The cost of the institute of Tibetan Buddhism in southwestern autonomous region is estimated to be $11.7 million. The project located near Lhasa is being fully funded by the central government in Beijing.
The high level institute is being set up in Nyetang Town, Quxu County near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in an area of 17.4 hectares. The first phase of construction is scheduled for completion in 2010. Its design includes a library and buildings for religious activities.

Besides religious theories, students at the academy will also be taught other disciplines such as politics and sociology.

According to official sources, nearly about $100 million has been spent by the central and local governments for the preservation and maintenance of monasteries and cultural relics in Tibet since 1980. The institute is the largest investment on this score by the central government in Tibet.

The proposed institute will train ’patriotic and devotional religious personnel’ with strong religious accomplishments and moral character. This is seen by government critics as an attempt to build an officially approved cadre of monks in order to dilute the influence of defiant monks in Tibet, some of whom have faith in the Dalai Lama.

It will conduct research on Tibetan Buddhism besides acting as a bridge for exchange of ideas on religious practices with the world outside.

Chinese government critics said that the move is an attempt by the Communist Party to reinforce its belief that Tibetan Buddhism with its many variations is independent of the Dalai Lama. The party regards the Dalai Lama as a politician, who is set to damage Tibetan culture.
“Dalai Lama and his clique and the anti-China forces in the West conspire to force the Tibetan ethnic group and its culture to stagnate and remain in a state similar to the Middle Ages,” the government said in a recent White Paper on Tibet.

The Communist Party has all along emphasised the need for religious personnel, including Tibetan monks and Christian priests to adopt the spirit of patriotism, which is regarded as a more important virtue than their spiritual accomplishments.

There are several research facilities on Tibetan Buddhism in different parts of China including Beijing, but this is the first project of its kind on the land of its origin.

The government White Paper also said: “The Tibetan people have developed their culture by means of interaction and fusion with other cultures, especially that of the Han people.”

Human Rights groups have for long accused Chinese leaders of changing the demographic and cultural landscape of Tibet by pushing in vast numbers of Han Chinese people from mainland China.

this article caught my eye because I recognised some things that we learned about buddhism- politics, sociology, dali llamas and stuff. Plus it seemed in the article that buddhism has become so popular that they are creating academies for it.