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- Dalai Lama: China will not lead search for successor</p>
<p>Samaan LateefJuly 2, 2025 at 1:58 AM</p>
<p>The Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday on Sunday - Ashwini Bhatia/AP</p>
<p>The Dalai Lama has declared that China will have no role in appointing his successor, as he confirmed that he plans to reincarnate after his death.</p>
<p>Speaking at prayer celebrations ahead of his 90th birthday on Sunday, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism said that his successor should be found and recognised as per past Buddhist traditions, while signalling that China should stay away from the process.</p>
<p>"I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a statement at a religious gathering of Buddhist monks in Dharamshala, India.</p>
<p>In a pointed remark towards Beijing, the Dalai Lama said the process of finding and recognising his reincarnation lies solely with the Gaden Phodrang Trust – an organisation founded by him in 2015.</p>
<p>"No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter," he said, adding that the search for a future Dalai Lama should be carried out in "accordance with past tradition" were a team of monks are sent out to find children who can identify items belonging to the previous Dalai Lama.</p>
<p>In response, Beijing said on Wednesday that the Dalai Lama's successor "must be approved by the central (Chinese) government".</p>
<p>An official later confirmed later that the next Dalai Lama does not have to come from Tibet.</p>
<p>The decision is expected to irk China, which has repeatedly said that it alone has the authority to approve the next religious leader. It insists the reincarnated figure must be found in China's Tibetan areas, giving Communist authorities power over who is chosen.</p>
<p>The Dalai Lama watches a spiritual dance at an event held at a Tibetan temple ahead of his birthday - Sanjay Baid/AFP</p>
<p>By publicly reaffirming that the Tibetan religious leadership will conduct the ancient process of identifying his reincarnation, through consultations with senior lamas and traditional divinations, the Dalai Lama has sought to reinforce spiritual legitimacy and Tibetan autonomy.</p>
<p>Beijing has long signalled that it intends to play a decisive role in selecting the next Dalai Lama, raising fears among Tibetans of a politically-compliant figurehead chosen by the Chinese Communist Party.</p>
<p>The urgency of the succession question is rising as the leader grows increasingly frail, with aides driving him around in golf carts and helping him to his seat at religious functions.</p>
<p>How is the next Dalai Lama chosen?</p>
<p>The search for a Dalai Lama's reincarnation begins only upon the incumbent's death. In the past, the successor has been identified by senior monastic disciples, based on spiritual signs and visions in a process that can take several years.</p>
<p>The 14th Dalai Lama, born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming family in Qinghai province, was identified as a reincarnation when he was two years old. A search party sent by the Tibetan government made the decision on the basis of several signs, such as a vision revealed to a senior monk, the Dalai Lama's website says.</p>
<p>The searchers were convinced when the toddler identified belongings of the 13th Dalai Lama with the phrase, "It's mine, it's mine".</p>
<p>In the winter of 1940, Lhamo Dhondup was taken to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of today's Tibet Autonomous Region, and officially installed as the spiritual leader of Tibetans.</p>
<p>But the Dalai Lama has lived in exile in northern India since 1959, after fleeing a failed uprising against the rule of Mao Zedong's Communists.</p>
<p>He set up a government-in-exile in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala and has been seen as an alternative source of power for those who resent Beijing's tight control of Tibet.</p>
<p>China says its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama's successor, as a legacy from imperial times. A selection ritual, in which the names of possible reincarnations are drawn from a golden urn, dates to 1793, during the Qing dynasty.</p>
<p>Chinese officials have repeatedly said the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should be decided by following national laws that decree use of the golden urn and the birth of reincarnations within China's borders.</p>
<p>But many Tibetans suspect any Chinese role in the selection as being a ploy to exert influence on the community.</p>
<p>It is inappropriate for Chinese Communists, who reject religion, "to meddle in the system of reincarnation of lamas, let alone that of the Dalai Lama," the Buddhist leader has said.</p>
<p>The Dalai Lama was born to a farming family in the Qinghai province - Ashwini Bhatia/AP</p>
<p>In his book, he asked Tibetans not to accept "a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including those in the People's Republic of China," referring to the country by its official name.</p>
<p>Beijing brands the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for keeping alive the Tibetan cause, as a "separatist" and prohibits displays of his picture or any public show of devotion towards him.</p>
<p>In March 2025, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the Dalai Lama was a political exile with "no right to represent the Tibetan people at all".</p>
<p>Beijing is yet to respond to the Dalai Lama's remarks, but ahead of his video statement, Chinese state media dismissed his suggestion that his successor could be born outside China. The Global Times accused him of seeking to undermine centuries-old traditions governing reincarnation, calling it an attempt to manipulate the process for personal ends.</p>
<p>The paper insisted that identifying Tibetan Buddhist leaders must follow the lot-drawing system, introduced in 1792, where names are drawn from a golden urn.</p>
<p>Xinhua argued there is no precedent for a reincarnated lama deciding the matter alone, warning that any effort to politicise reincarnation would fail.</p>
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