“True and it stretches credulity too far to believe that it was due to stupidity or naivety.”
True; the policy was neither stupid nor naive. It was and is completely cynical and so easily disposed of Eastern Christians because the practioners of the policy don’t view them as real Christians.
BTW, it has always fascinated me that there are so many similarities, if not a shared total identity of thought, between the “...far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self” taught by Vajrayana and Theravada Buddhism and the “dying to the self” process of theosis in Orthodox Christianity.
Your thoughts on Buddhism are interesting. My teacher thinks much the same thing. He has told me several times that if he could embrace Christianity again it would be the Eastern Orthodox church. He sees great similarities in view. FWIW he is an American not a Tibetan and went to a Jesuit high school so he is very familiar with western culture and Christian teachings.