BOOK LAUNCH: Figures of Buddhist Diplomacy in Modern Asia

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About the Book

Exploring prominent Buddhist leaders, politicians, and diplomats who have engaged in Buddhist diplomacy in modern Asia since the twentieth century, this is the first open access book to argue for the need to bring Buddhism into the study of international relations in modern Asia.
Each chapter focuses on the collaboration and networks between Buddhists, non-Buddhists, and state actors in the making of Buddhist diplomacy, seeking to reveal how religion continues to play a role in the foreign policy of secular countries in Asia. The volume challenges common assumptions that Buddhism is politically inactive and therefore unimportant to foreign relations.
Through its multidisciplinary approach, this book advances a new direction of scholarship that bridges diplomatic history, international relations, and religious studies. Scholars range from religious studies specialists, anthropologists, historians, and political scientists. Chapters include a focus on the roles of Buddhist figures such as Thích Nhat Hanh, Hong Choon, George Yeo, and Xi Jinping.
Building on previous studies on religion in international relations and global politics, this volume offers an empirically grounded examination of the use of Buddhist diplomacy in modern times. In doing so, it breaks new ground, bringing Buddhism into the study of foreign policy and integrating transnational Buddhist networks into the study of international relations.

About the Editor

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

NUS Department of History

Jack Meng-Tat CHIA is the Foo Hai Fellow in Buddhist Studies and an Associate Professor of History at the National University of Singapore. He is a historian of religion with a focus on Buddhism and Chinese religions in Southeast Asia. He is the author of (Oxford, 2020), which was awarded the 2021 EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize and shortlisted for the 2023 Friedrich Weller Prize. The book has been translated into Chinese and Indonesian. His second book, 東南亞法音: 新加坡佛教研究論集 [Southeast Asia’s Dharma: Essays on Buddhism in Singapore] (Boyang, 2025), is a collection of essays on Buddhism in Singapore. Chia is currently completing an edited volume, , which consists of twenty-two chapters examining monastic, lay, and political figures involved in Buddhist diplomacy from the early twentieth century to the present. This project is supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Fellowship, awarded by the Social Science Research Council Singapore. He is also working on his monograph, Buddhayana: The Making of an Indonesian Buddhist Movement, which explores the history and development of the Buddhayana movement in Indonesia.

Chia is the founding chair of the Buddhist Studies Group and the convenor of the GL Louis Religious Pluralism Research Cluster at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, NUS. He co-chairs the Theravada Studies Group of the Association for Asian Studies and serves as a board member of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions. He is an editor for the journals Asian Culture and the Journal of Global Buddhism, an associate editor of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, and a member of the editorial boards for Contemporary Buddhism, Journal of Chinese Religions, MINDEN: Journal of History and Archaeology, Reading Religion, Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism, and the book series “Religion in Contemporary Asia” (De Gruyter). He also serves on the Heritage Advisory Panel and the National Collection Advisory Panel of the National Heritage Board. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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