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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
At 90, the Dalai Lama braces for final showdown with Beijing: his
reincarnation
By Simone McCarthy and CNN Staff
Updated:
8:50 PM EDT, Thu July 3, 2025
Source: CNN
For much of the past century, the Dalai Lama has been the living
embodiment of Tibet’s struggle for greater freedoms under Chinese
Communist Party rule, sustaining the cause from exile even as an
increasingly powerful Beijing has become ever more assertive in
suppressing it.
As his 90th birthday approaches this Sunday, the spiritual leader for
millions of followers of Tibetan Buddhism worldwide is bracing for a
final showdown with Beijing: the battle over who will control his
reincarnation.
On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama that he will have a successor after his
death, and that his office will have the sole authority to identify his
reincarnation.
“I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will
continue,” the Nobel Peace laureate said in a video message to
religious elders gathering in Dharamshala, India, where he has found
refuge since Chinese communist troops put down an armed uprising in his
mountainous homeland in 1959.
The cycle of rebirth lies at the core of Tibetan Buddhist belief.
Unlike ordinary beings who are reborn involuntarily under the influence
of karma, a revered spiritual master like the Dalai Lama is believed to
choose the place and time of his rebirth – guided by compassion and
prayer – for the benefit of all sentient beings.
But the reincarnation of the current Dalai Lama is not only pivotal to
Tibetan Buddhism. It has become a historic battleground for the future
of Tibet, with potentially far-reaching geopolitical implications for
the broader Himalayan region.
“He has been such a magnet, uniting all of us, drawing all of us,”
said Thupten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama’s longtime translator, who
assisted the leader on his latest memoir,
“I often say to the younger-generation Tibetans: We sometimes get
spoiled because we are leaning on this very solid rock. One day, when
the rock goes away, what are we going to do?”
In that memoir, published this year, the Dalai Lama states that his
successor will be born in the “free world” outside China, urging
Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists globally to reject any candidate
selected by Beijing.
But China’s ruling Communist Party it alone holds the authority to
approve the next Dalai Lama – as well as all reincarnations of
“Living Buddhas,” or high-ranking lamas in Tibetan Buddhism.
At the heart of this clash is the ambition of an officially atheist,
authoritarian state to dominate a centuries-old spiritual tradition –
and to control the hearts and minds of a people determined to preserve
their unique identity.
Beijing brands the current Dalai Lama a dangerous “separatist” and
blames him for instigating Tibetan protests, unrest, and
self-immolations against Communist Party rule.
The Dalai Lama has rejected those accusations, insisting that he seeks
genuine autonomy for Tibet, not full independence – a nonviolent
“middle way” approach that has earned him international support and
a Nobel Peace Prize.
To his Tibetan followers, the “simple Buddhist monk” is more than a
spiritual leader or former temporal ruler of their homeland. He stands
as a larger-than-life symbol of their very existence as a people,
defined by a distinct language, culture, religion and way of life that
Beijing is trying to erase.
But the Dalai Lama’s death could also pose a new dilemma for the
Communist Party. Some younger Tibetans in exile view his “middle
way” approach as overtly conciliatory toward Beijing. In the absence
of a unifying figure to guide the exile movement and temper its more
radical factions, demands for full Tibetan independence could gather
momentum.
Battle over loyalty
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was only 15 when communist troops
– having won the Chinese civil war – marched into Tibet in 1950 to
bring the remote Himalayan plateau under the control of the newly
founded People’s Republic.
The Communist Party claims it “liberated” Tibet from “feudal
serfdom” and reclaimed a region it says has been part of China for
centuries. But many Tibetans resented what they saw as the brutal
invasion and occupation by a foreign army.
The resistance culminated in an armed uprising with calls for Tibetan
independence in March 1959, sparked by fears that Chinese authorities
were planning to abduct the Dalai Lama. As tensions mounted and the
People’s Liberation Army fired munitions near the Dalai Lama’s
palace, the young leader escaped the capital Lhasa under cover of
night. The Chinese army ultimately crushed the rebellion, killing tens
of thousands of Tibetans, according to , though the exact number
remains disputed.
After fleeing to India, the Dalai Lama established a
government-in-exile in Dharamshala. Since then, he has come to
represent Tibet, said Ruth Gamble, an expert in Tibetan history at La
Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
“Before the 1950s, the idea of Tibet was much more diffuse – there
was a place, there was a state, and there were all of these different
communities. But over the years, he’s almost become an abstract ideal
of a whole nation,” she said.
The Chinese Communist Party has waged a decades-long campaign to
discredit the current Dalai Lama and erase his presence from Tibetan
life, while tightening restrictions on religious and cultural
practices. The crackdown often intensifies around sensitive dates –
– but devotion to the spiritual leader has quietly endured.
“Despite all these years of banning his photos, in every Tibetan
heart there is an image of the Dalai Lama there. He is the unifying
figure, and he is the anchor,” Jinpa, the translator, said.
It’s a profound emotional and spiritual loyalty that defies the risk
of persecution and imprisonment — and one that the Communist Party
deems a threat to its authority, yet is eager to co-opt.
Over the years, Beijing has cultivated a group of senior Tibetan lamas
loyal to its rule, including the Panchen Lama, the second-highest
figure in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama himself.
, dalai lamas and panchen lamas have acted as mentors to each other and
played a part in identifying or endorsing each other’s reincarnations
– a close relationship likened by Tibetans to the sun and the moon.
But in 1995, years after the death of the 10th Panchen Lama, Beijing
upended tradition by installing its own Panchen Lama in defiance of the
Dalai Lama, whose pick for the role – a six-year-old boy – has
since vanished from public view.
Beijing’s Panchen Lama is seen as an imposter by many Tibetans at
home and in exile. He is often shown in China’s state-run media
toeing the Communist Party line and praising its policies in Tibet.
Last month, in a with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the Tibetan monk
reaffirmed his allegiance to the rule of the Communist Party and
pledged to make his religion more Chinese – a tenet of Xi’s policy
on religion.
Experts and Tibetan exiles believe Beijing will seek to interfere in
the Dalai Lama’s eventual succession using a similar playbook –
appointing and grooming a candidate loyal to its rule, with the backing
of the state-appointed Panchen Lama and other senior lamas cultivated
by the government.
That could lead to the emergence of two rival dalai lamas: one chosen
by his predecessor, the other by the Communist Party.
Jinpa, the Dalai Lama’s translator, is unfazed by that prospect.
“Personally, I don’t worry about that, because it’s kind of a
joke. It’s not funny because the stakes are so high, but it’s
tragic,” he said, referring to Beijing’s likely attempt to appoint
its own dalai lama. “I just feel sorry for the family whose child is
going to be seized and told that this is the dalai lama. I’m already
feeling sad for whoever’s going to suffer that tragedy.”
For his part, the current Dalai Lama has made clear that any candidate
appointed by Beijing will hold no legitimacy in the eyes of Tibetans or
followers of Tibetan Buddhism.
“It is totally inappropriate for Chinese Communists, who explicitly
reject religion, including the idea of past and future lives, to meddle
in the system of reincarnation of lamas, let alone that of the dalai
lama,” he writes in “Voice for the Voiceless.”
With his characteristic wit and playful sense of humor, he adds:
“Before Communist China gets involved in the business of recognizing
the reincarnation of lamas, including the dalai lama, it should first
recognize the reincarnations of its past leaders Mao Zedong and Deng
Xiaoping!”
The search for a dalai lama
Tibetan Buddhism reveres its spiritual leader as the human
manifestation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion – an enlightened being
who, rather than entering nirvana, chooses to be reborn to help
humanity. The current Dalai Lama is the latest in a long lineage of
reincarnations that have spanned six centuries.
The search for a dalai lama’s rebirth is an elaborate and sacred
process. Important clues are the instructions or indications left by a
predecessor (it could be as subtle as the direction in which the
deceased dalai lama’s head was turned). Additional methods include
asking reliable spiritual masters for their divination, consulting
oracles, and interpreting visions received by senior lamas during
meditation at sacred lakes.
Following these clues, search parties are dispatched to look for young
children born after the dalai lama’s death. Candidates are subject to
a series of tests, including identifying objects that belonged to the
previous incarnation.
But the dalai lama’s reincarnation hasn’t always been found in
Tibet. The fourth dalai lama was identified in the late 16th century in
Mongolia, while the sixth was discovered about a century later in what
is currently Arunachal Pradesh, India.
The current Dalai Lama, born into a farming family in a small village
in the northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau, was identified when he
was two years old, according to his . He assumed full political power
at 15, ahead of schedule, to guide his distressed people as they faced
advancing Chinese Communist forces.
If the next dalai lama is to be identified as a young child, as per
tradition, it could take some two decades of training before he assumes
the mantle of leadership – a window that Beijing could seek to
exploit as it grooms and promotes its own rival dalai lama.
“For us, the one recognized by the Dalai Lama, born in exile, is the
real one. So as far as the matter of faith is concerned, I think there
is no issue. It’s just the politics and geopolitics,” said Lobsang
Sangay, the former prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile in
Dharamshala.
For instance, Beijing could pressure other countries to invite its own
dalai lama for ceremonies, said Sangay, now a senior visiting fellow at
Harvard Law School.
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Vajrayana Buddhism – one of the major
branches of the faith – which is widely practiced in Mongolia and the
Himalayan regions of Bhutan, Nepal and India.
These countries – and to a lesser extent, other nations with large
Buddhist populations such as Japan and Thailand – could be forced to
choose which dalai lama to recognize, according to Gamble in Melbourne.
“Or they may and say: ‘We’re not going to get into it.’ But
even that might anger the Chinese government,” she added.
Aware of his own mortality, the Dalai Lama has been preparing the
Tibetan people for an eventual future without him. He laid what he sees
as the most important groundwork by strengthening the institutions of
the Tibetan movement and fostering a self-reliant democracy within the
exile community.
In 2011, the Dalai Lama devolved his political power to the
democratically elected head of the Tibetan government-in-exile,
retaining only his role as the spiritual head of the Tibetan people.
Sangay, who took up the baton as the political leader of the exiled
government, said that by making the transition to democracy the Dalai
Lama wanted to ensure Tibetans can run the movement and the government
on their own, even after he is gone.
“He has specifically said: ‘You cannot just rely on me as an
individual… I’m mortal. The time will come when I won’t be there.
So it is for the Tibetan people, while I’m here, to transition to
full-fledged democracy – with all its ups and downs – and to learn
from it and grow, mature and be stronger, moving forward,’” he
said.
That goal has taken on added urgency as the Tibetan movement for
safeguarding their culture, identity and genuine autonomy increasingly
finds itself in a precarious moment.
Under leader Xi Jinping, Beijing has and surveillance in its frontier
regions, intensified efforts to , and rolled out a nationwide campaign
to – ensuring it aligns with Communist Party leadership and values.
The Chinese government it has safeguarded cultural rights and religious
freedom in Tibet and touts the region’s economic development and
significant infrastructure investment, which it says has improved
living standards and lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of
poverty.
United Nations experts and the Dalai Lama have expressed concerns over
what they call an intensifying by the Chinese government, following
that Chinese authorities have closed rural area Tibetan language
schools and forced about a million Tibetan children to attend public
boarding schools. Officials in Tibet have strongly pushed back on the
accusations.
And as China’s political and economic clout has grown, the Dalai
Lama’s global influence appears to be waning, especially as old age
makes it difficult to sustain his extensive globe-trotting. The
spiritual leader has not met a sitting US president since , after
numerous visits to the White House since 1991.
But some Tibetans remain hopeful. Jinpa, the translator, said that
while the Dalai Lama is still alive, Tibetans must find ways to
establish a sure footing for themselves.
“My own feeling is that if we can get our act together and the dalai
lama institution continues with a new dalai lama being discovered, the
power of the symbol will be maintained,” he said.
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