Religious Relations across the Taiwan Strait: Patterns, Alignments, and Political Effects

This study of Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian relations across the Taiwan Strait elicits three observations: (1) officials on both sides of the Strait are permitting increased cross-Strait religious interaction, but each side has different calculations for doing so; (2) each side uses religion as “soft power” to obtain its political objectives, but these low-key approaches are limited—for different reasons; and (3) even though cross-Strait religious ties are defined by the governments and religious organizations in Taiwan and China in cultural terms, they have significant political implications.