Tibet’s 89-year-old Dalai Lama challenges Beijing

SEOUL, South Korea — Tibet’s Dalai Lama said Wednesday that he will reincarnate after his death and that only his India-based organization has the authority to appoint his successor. It was a clear jab at Beijing, which has insisted that officially atheist China will choose the next Buddhist spiritual leader.

Speaking at prayer celebrations in India, where he lives in exile, the 89-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said the next Dalai Lama should be found and recognized under the sole auspices of the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a nonprofit he founded in 2015 to oversee the religious office.

“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said in a statement shared at the gathering. He said the search for a future Dalai Lama should be carried out in “accordance with past tradition.”

Tibetans in exile and many of the 6 million Tibetans living under China’s authoritarian control welcomed his long-awaited succession plan.

Tenzin Gyatso became the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama in 1940. In 1959, he fled Tibet when Chinese troops crushed a U.S.-backed uprising in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and has lived in Dharamshala, India, since. He has helped establish a democratic government in exile while traveling the world to advocate autonomy for the Tibetan people.

Seen by his worshippers as a living manifestation of the Buddhist god of compassion, the Dalai Lama is viewed as a problematic separatist by China’s communist leaders.

With a succession process now in play, Chinese media Global Times said Wednesday, “The reincarnation of Living Buddhas must adhere to the principle of [Chinese] government oversight.”

Beijing has emplaced its own succession system.

A key figure in appointing a new Dalai Lama is the Panchen Lama. Two such figures were named in 1995.

One is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, appointed by the exiled Dalai Lama, whereabouts unknown. The other is Gyaincain Norbu, appointed by Beijing.

Two Dalai Lamas might be named after the incumbent dies.

Religious freedom, sovereign rights and geopolitics intersect in the issue.

In addition to keeping the flame of Tibetan culture alight, the 14th Dalai Lama has gained worldwide affection as a voice of wisdom and exemplar of kindness, tolerance and nonviolence.

His global stature has irked Beijing, which has deployed diplomatic pressure against countries that allow him to visit.

Dalai Lama speaks up

The Dalai Lama shared his statement in an English-language translation on his official website.

The original was published in the vernacular on May 21 but was likely released in English on Wednesday to coincide with an upcoming conference of Tibetan Buddhists in Dharamshala, Dorjee Tseten, a member of the pro-Dalai Lama Tibetan Parliament in Exile, told The Washington Times.

The “Statement Affirming the Continuation of the Institution of Dalai Lama” notes that the incumbent pledged in 2011 to decide when he reached 90 whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or be abolished.

With his 90th birthday Sunday, the time for a decision had come.

The Dalai Lama oversees Tibetan Buddhism, a form of religion prevalent in Tibet and Mongolia and followed in various parts of the Himalayas and communities worldwide.

The statement reported that over the past 14 years, exile organizations, nongovernmental organizations and individual Buddhists from across the Himalayas, Mongolia and Russia, as well as from China and Tibet, have requested the institution’s continuity.

As a result, “I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the spiritual leader said in his statement.

The Gaden Phodrang Trust, officially the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, will have “sole authority” in finding and naming the successor.

Beijing, which oversees religious activities via its State Administration of Religious Affairs, differs.

“From the perspectives of national sovereignty and governmental authority, the central government exercises an approval and conferral system for the reincarnations of influential Living Buddhas,” Li Decheng, a research fellow with the China Tibetology Research Center, wrote in a commentary published in state media Global Times on Wednesday. “This reflects the state’s sovereignty over regions such as Xizang and its authoritative role in the recognition of reincarnations.”

The struggle for Tibet’s soul

Exiled activists say Tibetan resistance continues.

“We know that over 155 Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009 across Tibet — monks, nuns, elders, students,” Mr. Tseten said via telephone. “They have called for his Holiness the Dalai Lama, for freedom, and have protested against ongoing Chinese occupation.”

In its most recent attempt to break national spirit, Beijing is de-culturing Tibetan children as young as 4 by placing them in boarding schools, activists say.

With the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, attached to nonviolence, activists plead for the world to speak up.

“It is important for the international community, and for governments, to take action diplomatically and publicly in response to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s statement, and to reject interference from China,’ Mr. Tseten said. “At the core is freedom of religion.”

There are other issues.

In the decades since China’s annexation, the Tibetan Plateau, “The Roof of the World,” has gained geopolitical significance.

It is dominated but not entirely held by China. India, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan and Tajikistan hold chunks of the plateau.

Even so, the Chinese-occupied terrain gives Beijing a buffer zone against potential conflicts with India.

It is also home to strategic resources, including uranium and lithium. With futurists warning of “water wars,” the area is the source of rivers that flow into South and Southeast Asia, including the Ganges, Indus and Mekong.

Despite Beijing’s muscle, Tibet Action, a nongovernmental organization, believes spirituality will eventually conquer.

“It is [the Dalai Lama’s] unmatched moral authority alongside the unwavering loyalty of the Tibetan people to him that makes the Chinese Communist Party determined to control his future reincarnation,” Gyal Lo, an activist and academic, said in a message emailed to reporters. “The institution of the Dalai Lama, which is nearly 630 years old … will outlive the CCP as well.”

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.