Background
Academic researchers confirm that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been successfully instrumentalizing Buddhism as a diplomatic tool since the early 2000s. This soft power model involves state-controlled Buddhist organizations building diplomatic bridges through shared religious heritage, leveraging religious leaders as cultural ambassadors in nations with a strong Buddhist presence. CCP leadership has stated it recognizes Buddhism as the most active religion in supporting their international objectives.
The CCP's approach follows a deliberate, decades-long strategy to position Buddhism as a tool for promoting Chinese development, advancing socialist values internationally, and strengthening national security through religious influence. To achieve this, the CCP has established comprehensive training pipelines and exchange systems, run by the CCP's United Front Work Department, to prepare politically reliable Buddhist leaders for international deployment. These patriotic education programs focus on "deepening the sinicization" of religious practices, teaching that politics takes precedence over religion and all religious practices should be obedient to the Beijing government.
Current Affairs
Evidence indicates the CCP is now planning to export sinicized Christianity due to its successful instrumentalization of Buddhism over the past two decades. The strategy appears to be in active development, following the Christian sinicization policy promulgated by President Xi Jinping in 2015, the implementation of five-year plans domestically in 2018-2019, and the first explicit announcement of international export plans in 2023. In June of that year, a pivotal conference in Jilin province saw CCP officials publicly outline plans to export sinicized Christianity globally. Pastor Kan Baoping, the General Secretary of the China Christian Council (CCC), which oversees the affairs of all registered Protestant churches in China, declared in his keynote address that the "major task" for Three-Self Christians (state-sanctioned Protestant Christians who believe in CCP religious self-governance, financial self-support separate from foreign funds, and self-propagation by Chinese evangelists rather than by foreign missionaries) is to transform the "successful experience of the Sinicization of Christianity" into "a great contribution made by Chinese Christianity to world Christianity." He went on to say, "We will change the face of world Christianity." This was the first documented instance of the CCP openly declaring its intent to export a state-controlled version of Christianity as an international influence tool.
Strategic motivations for this expansion include competing with the United States in Christian-majority nations for access to natural resources, deploying religious diplomacy to enhance Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economic and political cooperation, and building international human rights legitimacy by demonstrating that religious freedom exists within the Chinese state. Global observers raise significant concerns that exported sinicized Christianity would fundamentally alter Christian theology by requiring loyalty to the CCP as a religious principle, replacing Christian doctrine with socialist party slogans, and subordinating biblical authority to President Xi Jinping’s authority.
Countries and regions already involved in the BRI that also have a strong Christian presence are likely targets for the CCP’s sinicized Christianity. These include Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Island Countries (PICs), as well as parts of the Indo-Pacific littoral. While direct, large-scale deployments of sinicized Christian pastors to these locations have not yet been widely confirmed, public declarations and academic analysis suggest imminent expansion. BRI-linked projects promoting sinicized Christian institutions are currently in formal programs, conferences, and policy initiatives, with ambitions for further physical and institutional expansion in developing BRI partner countries, though these efforts are less developed than comparable Buddhist diplomacy.
Based on my direct engagement with Christian leaders in Southeast Asia and the PICs, as well as discussions with U.S. Embassy personnel in those countries, it is evident that the CCP’s strategy of deploying sinicized Christian leaders offers a credible way to expand its political influence in Christian-majority states. The PICs are especially vulnerable, given the very high percentage of their populations that identify as Christian and the widespread presence of clergy with limited formal theological training, resulting in congregations with relatively low biblical literacy who may struggle to detect subtle reinterpretations or omissions of traditional Christian doctrine. These vulnerabilities are further reinforced by persistent economic hardships, dependence on offshore higher education, and a strong receptivity to external material support.
As a hypothetical case, the CCP could identify Palau (a place of intense geopolitical competition between America and China) as a prime target for the deployment of sinicized Christianity for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph, as well as its strategic location along the second island chain, its large population of Asian immigrant workers and tourists, its abundance of clergy-less churches, and its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan rather than Beijing. Under such an approach, the CCP might extend fully subsidized theological education to Palauan pastors at state-run seminaries in China, while simultaneously financing the construction of modern, amenity-rich church buildings as part of broader BRI infrastructure projects. Upon their return, Palauan pastors trained under CCP oversight would either take over existing clergy-less churches or establish new ones, gradually introducing state-loyalty themes and CCP-aligned theological narratives. These sinicized Christian churches would likely draw extensive Palauan participation (including local government, business, and social leaders), who would be attracted by their formally educated and full-time clergy, well-funded programming, and modern facilities. This dual-track religious soft-power campaign would complement existing CCP pressure tactics in Palau, forming a comprehensive influence strategy aimed at undermining Taiwan’s relationship with Palau by shifting one of its most strategically located partners through religious means.
Recommendations
First, Department of Defense (DoD) chaplaincy should prioritize Strategic Religious Engagements (SREs) with local faith community leaders in the Indo-Pacific, where competition with the PRC in Asia, Oceania, and Latin America is most intense. Chaplain-led SREs, because of shared religious values, promote authentic partnerships which advance mutually beneficial humanitarian, development, and security objectives. Prioritizing engagements with local faith community leaders would require training DoD chaplains and their unit commanders on the purpose and execution of SREs, aligning and sequencing SREs to create cumulative effects over space and time, and sending chaplains to strategically important locations outside of routine military deployments/exercises/missions to conduct SREs. Commanders should also set expectations that their unit chaplains conduct SREs with local faith communities, in collaboration with U.S. embassies and higher echelon Indo-Pacific chaplains, whenever their commands are in Asian, Oceanic, and Latin American countries. The end state should be a sustained DoD chaplaincy presence that fosters trusting relationships with faith community leaders, supporting their religious ministry to the local population which, in turn, enhances their capacity to resist malign CCP influence.
Second, DoD chaplaincy should work to close the gap between U.S. military service chaplains, partner nation chaplains, and host nation chaplains (if applicable) to force-multiply religious engagements with Indo-Pacific faith communities. Coordinated SREs ensure a more consistent presence in strategic locations vulnerable to CCP soft power efforts without overwhelming local religious leaders. Planning and then debriefing those SREs collaboratively helps ensure deliberate capacity building of host nations. United States, partner nation, and host nation chaplaincies should also conduct regular SRE training, exercises, conferences, and working groups to stay synchronized and adjust efforts as needed.
Third, overseas military operations are conducted hand-in-glove with U.S. embassies and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to advance U.S. whole-of-government goals. In that spirit, DoD chaplaincy should coordinate with interagency and INGO partners in each consular district to keep SREs aligned. Chaplain-supported faith communities help alleviate suffering, defend religious freedom, and foster societal resilience, thereby strengthening the stability and security of the host nation. Embassies, in turn, provide religious landscaping and identify SRE opportunities for visiting chaplains. To make this collaboration routine, DoD chaplaincy should convene an annual Indo-Pacific forum for embassy representatives to establish lines of communication, offer SRE awareness training, and develop shared efforts to support faith communities across Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. With embassy and INGO permanent presence and DoD chaplains as visiting partners, the U.S. can help local faith communities in resisting the sinicized Christian influence of the CCP.
Conclusion
The Western assumption of uncontested influence within the sacred spaces of the Indo-Pacific can no longer be taken for granted. Great power competition between the PRC and the U.S. has now expanded into the religious domain. Despite its official atheist ideology, Beijing has explicitly announced its strategic intention to instrumentalize Christianity as a tool of political influence, with senior officials declaring objectives to "change the face of world Christianity" in service of CCP interests. In this changing threat environment, DoD chaplaincy offers a unique institutional capability—a specialized religious engagement resource with an established presence across the Indo-Pacific—positioned to partner with local faith communities and enhance their capacity to resist the Xi regime’s state-controlled, sinicized Christian exportation.
Editor's Note: These articles were written as part of The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power project, made possible by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation. The statements made and views expressed in project outputs are solely the responsibility of the authors.
