As the 14th Dalai Lama nears his 90th birthday this July, an existential battle looms over the future of Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—a regime founded on militant atheism—now claims the authority to determine the next Dalai Lama. This is more than political interference; it’s a breathtaking act of cultural and religious appropriation unprecedented in modern history.
The irony is staggering. A government that persecutes religious practitioners, razes monasteries, and imprisons devotees now insists it alone possesses the legitimate authority to identify the next incarnation of Tibet’s foremost spiritual figure. The CCP, which denounced religion as “poison” through Mao Zedong’s own words, now positions itself as the ultimate arbiter of Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation—a cosmic contradiction that would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so profound.
The current Dalai Lama has been unambiguous about his intentions. In his recent work “Voice for the Voiceless,” he definitively states that “the new Dalai Lama will be born in the free world”—a clear rejection of China’s authoritarian grip. He has promised to leave explicit written instructions regarding his succession, establishing a spiritual and legal foundation to counter Beijing’s planned interference.
China’s claim to control this sacred process rests on historical distortions. Beijing invokes the 1793 Manchu-era “Golden Urn” ceremony as proof of its historical authority over Tibetan reincarnations. Yet this selective historical cherry-picking ignores crucial facts: the current Dalai Lama wasn’t selected through this process, nor were the 9th or 13th Dalai Lamas. The 10th and 12th Dalai Lamas were identified before any such ceremony could be conducted. The “Golden Urn” requirement has been observed more in breach than in practice—rendering China’s historical claim extraordinarily tenuous.
The CCP’s desperation to control the Dalai Lama succession reveals its fundamental insecurity about Tibet. When informed of the current Dalai Lama’s escape in 1959, Mao simply remarked: “We have lost!” Six decades of oppression have failed to extinguish Tibetan cultural identity or devotion to their spiritual leader. Beijing now sees capturing the institution of the Dalai Lama as its path to legitimacy.
We’ve already witnessed China’s playbook with the Panchen Lama, traditionally Tibet’s second-highest religious authority. In 1995, after the Dalai Lama recognized six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, Chinese authorities kidnapped the child—who remains the world’s youngest political prisoner, his whereabouts still unknown nearly three decades later. China instead installed its own candidate, Gyaincain Norbu, who lacks spiritual credibility among Tibetans despite extensive government promotion. Today, Chinese authorities reportedly pay citizens 100 yuan each to receive their handpicked Panchen Lama’s blessings—a pathetic testament to the failure of forced religious legitimacy.
The CCP’s bureaucratization of religion reached new heights in 2007 with “Order No. 5,” which formally declared government approval necessary for any reincarnation. This absurd regulation essentially requires supernatural phenomena to obtain bureaucratic sanction—as if Buddha’s dharma must first secure a CCP stamp of approval. The atheist state now claims ownership over the mechanisms of rebirth, an assertion of authority that extends beyond the physical world into the metaphysical realm.
Inside Tibet, China has systematically attacked connections to the Dalai Lama. Monks have been forced to sign documents renouncing their spiritual ties to him. Tibetans found possessing his image or sharing his teachings face imprisonment. Children are forbidden from learning their native language, forced instead into Mandarin education programs designed to sever their cultural connections. Even the name “Tibet” itself is being systematically replaced with the Sinicized term “Xizang” in official communications—linguistic imperialism that attempts to erase a civilization.
The international community has begun pushing back against this spiritual colonization. The United States’ Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 explicitly recognizes that the Dalai Lama’s own wishes “should play a key role” in selecting his successor. The Dutch parliament recently passed a resolution rejecting Chinese interference in the succession. These measures aim to deny legitimacy to any Beijing-appointed Dalai Lama, creating diplomatic obstacles to China’s religious power grab.
When we strip away diplomatic niceties, China’s position is fundamentally absurd: a Communist regime claiming authority over Buddhist reincarnation represents perhaps the most naked contradiction in modern political theology. As the Dalai Lama himself wryly observed, if the Chinese government truly believes in rebirth, “then they should start it from the reincarnation of Mao and Deng Xiaoping.”
The struggle over the Dalai Lama’s succession transcends religion—it represents the frontline in China’s broader campaign of cultural genocide. Beijing seeks not merely territorial control over Tibet but the right to redefine and appropriate Tibetan identity itself. By capturing Buddhism’s most recognized living symbol, China hopes to transform Tibetan spirituality into a state-managed propaganda tool—replacing genuine faith with political theater.
For Tibetans, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If Beijing kidnaps the next Dalai Lama, then our sun will be eclipsed—and we may never see light again. This poignant metaphor captures the existential threat facing not just a religious institution but an entire cultural universe.
The international community must recognize this struggle for what it is—not an obscure religious dispute but a brazen attempt at cultural annihilation. When an atheist state claims the right to identify a religious leader believed to embody divine compassion, we witness not merely hypocrisy but spiritual violence of the highest order.
As the Dalai Lama approaches 90, the global community must stand ready to defend the sanctity of his succession. If we fail to act, we risk becoming complicit in one of history’s most cynical religious hijackings—allowing an authoritarian regime to not only conquer land and liberties, but to lay claim to the sacred. Ankit K (Institute – Asst Professor in International Relations, National Defence University)