On a rain-soaked April day on Taiwan’s western coast, tens of hundreds of pilgrims walked alongside a palanquin bearing a picket statue of the ocean goddess Mazu, probably the most broadly worshipped deities on the island. Borne by 4 devotees, Mazu’s picture glided alongside the road, stopping every now and then for the adoration of locals who turned out within the hundreds to supply fried snacks, cookies, freshly brewed tea, and fruits to the pilgrims—all without spending a dime.
Mazu—also referred to as Matsu—is believed to have been as soon as a human lady, like many Chinese language deities. She lived, if the tales are true, in a coastal island of the southern Chinese language province of Fujian within the tenth century, changing into well-known for her miraculous items. A couple of centuries after her dying, she turned a patron of sailors and fishermen all through southern China. It’s a heritage of worship shared by many Taiwanese—however one which Beijing is now attempting to use for its personal ends.
For 9 days in late April, the Dajia Mazu pilgrims journey roughly 200 miles on foot throughout Taiwan’s western coast, from the second-largest metropolis of Taichung by way of rice fields and villages, earlier than looping again once more to the Mazu statue’s dwelling on the Dajia Jenn Lann temple in Taichung’s suburban district of Dajia. This 12 months, native authorities estimated tens of hundreds turned out for the primary day alone, with a whole lot of hundreds becoming a member of at completely different levels alongside the route. In complete, effectively over 1 million individuals take part in Mazu pilgrimages throughout Taiwan annually, peaking within the spring throughout a time that many name “Mazu insanity.”
Crowds encompass a sedan chair with a statue of the goddess Mazu in Dajia on April 13, 2018.Carl Courtroom/Getty Photos
Xu Zi-xuan, a volunteer in his mid-30s who has joined the pilgrimage yearly for greater than a decade, traces his devotion to a miracle. Years in the past, he stated, his mom’s arm was badly injured in a automobile accident. Surgical procedure and different makes an attempt by docs couldn’t assist her carry the arm previous her shoulder. Then one night time, she dreamed of a wierd lady who took her hand and instructed her to not fear. “When she awakened, her arm was higher,” Xu instructed Overseas Coverage. “We imagine that lady was Mazu.”
Liu Jia-li has been bringing her 18-year-old son, Wang Ke-buo, to the pilgrimage ever since he was 2 years outdated. When Wang was born, she and his father selected Mazu to be his godmother—a typical apply in Taiwan.
“We’re strolling from Yunlin to Changhua as we speak to thank Mazu for supporting him and holding him protected,” Liu stated.
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A youngster, sporting a hat and T-shirt, smiles on the digicam whereas making a peace signal with their proper hand. - Xu Zi-xuan, a volunteer who has joined the pilgrimage yearly for greater than a decade, is pictured in Huatan on April 24.
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Two individuals stand collectively, with the particular person on the left smiling on the digicam and the particular person on the correct utilizing their proper hand to make a peace signal. - Liu Jia-li and her son, Wang Ke-buo, through the pilgrimage in Huatan on April 24. Ashish Valentine pictures for Overseas Coverage
Mazu is worshipped on either side of the Taiwan Strait, though for many years in China, that worship—like different types of faith—was repressed below Maoism. Within the fashionable Folks’s Republic of China, the state has more and more sought to harness her following for explicitly political ends, framing the spiritual apply as proof that Taiwan and China are “one household,” sure by shared ancestors and a shared destiny.
On the heart of that effort is Meizhou Island in Fujian. It’s dwelling to the Meizhou Mazu Temple, which Chinese language officers and state media promote as the unique birthplace of Lin Mo-Niang, the lady who would later grow to be Mazu, and the ancestral temple for Mazu worship all through the area.
This framing leans closely on a function of Chinese language people faith: fenling, the ritual “division of spirit,” by which a brand new statue of a deity is consecrated by transferring non secular vitality from an older one, making a lineage relationship between the 2 worship websites. Historically, these connections must be periodically renewed by pilgrimage—usually actually bringing the “daughter” statue again to the “mom.”
Anthropologist Jacob Tischer, a professor at Czechia’s Charles College who has studied Mazu worship in Fujian and Taiwan, stated that when Han Chinese language migrants from Fujian began settling Taiwan within the seventeenth century, they introduced Mazu statues from Fujian for defense from the harmful currents and waves of the Taiwan Strait (identified by migrants because the Black Ditch) that claimed numerous lives.
Upon their arrival in Taiwan, they positioned these statues in temples, which have been ritually linked to their dwelling temples in Fujian. Han settlers pushing additional into beforehand Indigenous-held territories in Taiwan would then convey alongside Mazu statues from these coastal temples, creating complicated chains of affiliation stretching from inland to coastal Taiwan, and again to Fujian, which wanted to be renewed periodically by way of pilgrimages.
Fujian remained important by way of the Qing dynasty, however the connection was minimize when pilgrimages again to the province have been severely restricted below Japanese colonial rule beginning within the late nineteenth century, after which banned outright when the Kuomintang social gathering (KMT) imposed martial legislation from 1949 till 1987 and journey between China and Taiwan was severely restricted.
Lion dancers carry out at Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia on April 13, 2018. Carl Courtroom/Getty Photos
The Dajia Jenn Lann temple, which hosts the Dajia pilgrimage, was one of many first Taiwanese temples to renew exchanges with Fujian in 1987. Right this moment, the temple sits on the head of the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship, a community spanning over 180 Mazu temples in Taiwan that always facilitates pilgrimage journeys to Meizhou. Directors of Mazu temples in Taiwan are usually not essentially clergymen themselves. Many are rich businessmen with ties to China. Within the case of the Dajia Jenn Lann temple, its chairman, Yen Ching-piao, is a distinguished former KMT legislator with a number of gang-related legal convictions for unlawful weapons and corruption.
Going to Meizhou means following strict situations, Tischer stated. “So, once they go, they should acknowledge that the Meizhou Temple is the best Mazu temple. However not everybody buys into that narrative.”
In keeping with Tischer, some Taiwanese temple proprietors imagine the Meizhou temple misplaced its earlier standing as a result of the unique buildings have been destroyed through the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the peak of anti-religious fervor in China: “In order that they imagine it’s now not the genuine seat of Mazu energy. It’s simply being propped up by the Chinese language Communist Get together and by Taiwanese temples that go to. However the true heart of gravity, the true energy of the Mazu cult, resides in Taiwan, which can also be why there are a variety of temples in Taiwan that refuse to go to Meizhou.”
Residents provide free snacks and drinks to the hundreds of pilgrims passing by way of Huatan on April 24.Ashish Valentine photograph for Overseas Coverage
Political scientist Chang Kuei-min at Nationwide Taiwan College instructed Overseas Coverage that, “for some temples, Meizhou issues enormously; for others, older Taiwanese temples and native pilgrimage networks are simply as significant, or much more so.”
What makes Mazu distinctive, and uniquely weak, is that this lineage logic may be repurposed. In Chinese language state narratives, fenling is now not only a ritual relationship, however a political one, implying that every one Mazu statues, and by extension their communities, finally belong to a single, China-centered origin level.
State media shops repeatedly invoke phrases like “all Mazus below heaven return dwelling” in protection of cross-strait spiritual exchanges in Meizhou. Beijing usually evokes shared spiritual figures to say either side of the strait as a part of a shared Chinese language nation, a discourse Cheng Li-wun, the chief of Taiwan’s opposition KMT social gathering, repeated in her latest assembly with Xi Jinping.
“Throughout Taiwan, temples are devoted to deities such because the Yellow Emperor … all of whom originated on the Mainland. Due to this fact, individuals on either side of the strait are all descendants of Yan and Huang, all belong to the Chinese language nation, all have been formed by Chinese language tradition, and all are one household,” Cheng Li-wun stated on the assembly, citing two emperors who, in response to legend, based Chinese language civilization.
At a 2023 assembly in Beijing, Music Tao, head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Workplace, instructed a bunch of Taiwanese pilgrims that “Mazu tradition is a crucial part of … the deep-rooted and flourishing Chinese language tradition in Taiwan.” He condemned “Taiwan independence forces’ makes an attempt to ‘de-Sinicize’ Taiwan” as “a betrayal of their ancestors.”
Hong Buo-chen, a longtime senior volunteer with the Dajia pilgrimage, has been to Meizhou many instances and heard Chinese language officers ship pro-unification speeches like these. “For me, it’s private,” he instructed Overseas Coverage. “I’m simply there to worship Mazu.”
Taiwanese officers are more and more fearful concerning the scale of China’s efforts.
Taiwan’s Ministry of the Inside, in a press release to Overseas Coverage, famous that the Dajia temple’s exchanges with Meizhou have intensified over time, evolving from “easy ceremonies of fenling statues returning to the mom temple” into large-scale excursions involving hundreds of devotees. Its Mainland Affairs Council, which handles cross-strait affairs, instructed Overseas Coverage that Beijing exploits Mazu pilgrimages to locations like Meizhou by “intentionally offering free or below-market hospitality to Taiwanese individuals, remodeling easy spiritual change right into a instrument for spreading political ideology.”
Folks stand by following the arrival of the Mazu statue at Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia on April 23, 2018.Carl Courtroom/Getty Photos
In response to China’s rising use of non secular change to push political unification, Taiwan’s authorities has urged spiritual teams attending occasions in China to register them upfront. The inside ministry famous that when it receives stories of home spiritual teams signing paperwork with Chinese language temples or establishing places of work in Taiwan for them with out permission from the right authorities, it investigates the teams for potential violations of the Cross-Strait Relations Act, which governs Taiwan’s relations with China.
The assume tank IORG, which researches Chinese language data operations in opposition to Taiwan, has documented how spiritual exchanges can double as affect channels. “Mazu is the primary god being instrumentalized by the CCP to attempt to exert affect in opposition to Taiwan,” the group’s co-director, Yu Chihhao, instructed Overseas Coverage.
In keeping with Sher Chien-Yuan, an economist at Taiwan’s Nationwide Solar Yat-sen College who has researched the influence of Mazu exchanges with China on election ends in southern Taiwan, tour teams coming back from Fujian usually preserve discussion groups that start with banal messages, like “good morning” greetings and recommendations on staying wholesome. However round election time, these messages shift in the direction of political content material and misinformation aimed toward discouraging votes for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Get together, which has taken a more durable line in opposition to Beijing, and pushing voters in the direction of extra China-friendly opposition events just like the KMT.
The impact of swinging votes towards the KMT is modest however measurable, Sher’s co-authored paper reveals. However mixed with the larger image of China’s efforts to affect Taiwan, Sher stated it might add as much as one thing a lot larger. Democracy is exclusive in that “voters can burn it on the poll field itself. … China is relying on Taiwanese voters to try this,” he stated.
“Freedoms like the liberty of speech and freedom of faith are values, however they’re additionally vulnerabilities,” Yu, of the assume tank IORG, stated. “All of those trust-based values and methods are actually being exploited by unhealthy actors, which forces all of us to confront this dilemma. And it causes a few of us these days, in Taiwan, to show rightwards. It doesn’t imply that we cease believing in this stuff. We simply must calibrate them, to guard them.”
