{"id":74302,"date":"2025-09-18T11:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/18\/chinas-temple-economy-in-the-spotlight-as-scandals-rock-influential-religious-leaders"},"modified":"2025-09-18T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:20:10","slug":"chinas-temple-economy-in-the-spotlight-as-scandals-rock-influential-religious-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74302","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s \u2018temple economy\u2019 in the spotlight as scandals rock influential religious leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Powerful Buddhist monks who have previously escaped punishment are the latest target of the government\u2019s crackdown on excess wealth and alleged corruption<\/p>\n<p>For a religious leader, the allegations were scandalous. Mistresses, illegitimate children, embezzlement. But in 2015, the head abbott of Shaolin monastery, the cradle of Zen Buddhism and kung-fu in China, was untouchable. Shi Yongxin, the so-called \u201cCEO monk\u201d who turned the 1,500-year-old monastery into a commercial empire worth hundreds of millions of yuan, held firm. Soon he was cleared of all charges.<\/p>\n<p>But 10 years later, the 60-year-old monk was not so lucky. In July, not long after Shi returned from a trip to the Vatican to meet the late Pope Francis, the Shaolin Temple released a statement saying that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jul\/28\/shaolin-temple-abbot-monk-investigation-embezzlement-ntwnfb\">he was being investigated<\/a> for allegedly misappropriating funds and for fathering illegitimate children with multiple mistresses. Less than a fortnight later he was dismissed and stripped of his monkhood. He has not been heard from since.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/18\/chinas-temple-economy-in-the-spotlight-as-scandals-rock-influential-religious-leaders\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Powerful Buddhist monks who have previously escaped punishment are the latest target of the government\u2019s crackdown on excess wealth and alleged corruptionFor a religious leader, the allegations were scandalous. Mistresses, illegitimate children, embezz&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,371,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-religion","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74303,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74302\/revisions\/74303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}