When Small States Practice Buddhist Diplomacy

While China and India compete for influence through Buddhism, smaller states such as Bhutan and Singapore are showing how Buddhist values, networks, and heritage can be transformed into diplomatic influence.

Their Majesties the King and Queen of Thailand, accompanied by His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Her Majesty Queen Jetsun Pema of Bhutan, attended a Buddhist chanting ceremony at the Buddha Dordenma statue in Bhutan on April 26, 2025.

As strategic competition between China and India intensifies, Buddhism has become an increasingly visible instrument of foreign policy. China has positioned itself as a center of Mahayana Buddhist civilization, sponsoring international Buddhist forums, restoring sacred sites, and weaving Buddhist heritage into its Belt and Road Initiative. India, the birthplace of Buddhism, has promoted its own Buddhist heritage by expanding pilgrimage circuits and lending sacred relics abroad.

The focus on China and India obscures a quieter, yet equally significant, story. Buddhist diplomacy is being practiced not only by Asia’s largest powers, but also by two of its smallest states: Bhutan and Singapore.

The cases of Bhutan and Singapore demonstrate how small states can pursue Buddhist diplomacy under different conditions. Their limited geopolitical weight and lack of great power status have encouraged them to cultivate influence through cultural networks and regional cooperation.

Bhutan, the world’s only official Vajrayana Buddhist kingdom, is a small, landlocked Himalayan state that has placed Buddhist values at the heart of both its domestic governance and its engagement with the world.

This approach owes much to the vision of the Fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who developed Gross National Happiness not simply as an alternative measure of development, but as a strategy for reconciling modernization with the preservation of Bhutan’s Buddhist culture and national identity. For a small state situated between India and China, this fusion of Buddhist values and development also served a strategic purpose, turning cultural distinctiveness into a means of safeguarding sovereignty while giving Bhutan an international profile far beyond its size.

The current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has had to navigate the structural constraints of Bhutan’s position between two much larger powers, preserving its longstanding ties with India while cautiously managing a consequential relationship with China, with which Bhutan still has no formal diplomatic relations. Against this backdrop, cultivating close relations with Thailand, Southeast Asia’s leading Theravāda Buddhist monarchy, provides Bhutan with a valuable partnership beyond its immediate geopolitical neighborhood.

Bhutan’s relations with Thailand have been reinforced through a series of recent high-level royal exchanges, including King Vajiralongkorn’s historic state visit to Bhutan in April 2025, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck’s receipt of an honorary doctorate from Chulalongkorn University in December 2025, and his attendance at the funeral rites of Princess Bajrakitiyabha in June 2026. In these exchanges, Buddhism serves as a shared cultural and symbolic language through which the two Buddhist monarchies deepen their bilateral relations.

The ongoing Gelephu Mindfulness City project extends Bhutan’s Buddhist diplomacy into the economic realm, transforming mindfulness, sustainability, and well-being from ethical principles into a distinctive national brand for attracting global investment and talent. In doing so,........

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