07/10/2026
As the Dalai Lama ages, the battle over his succession has already begun, with the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party preparing to assert control over the spiritual world.
Beijing’s view is clear: when His Holiness dies, his reincarnation must be “approved by the central government,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning reiterated last July.
The upshot: soon there will likely be two Dalai Lamas, one sanctioned by the CCP and another by the Office of His Holiness. China insists a state-sanctioned shortlist of Chinese candidates will be placed inside a golden urn gifted to Tibet by the Qing Dynasty court, with the single name then withdrawn as the true reincarnation.
“It is total shamelessness,” says Geshe Lhakdor, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar who for many years served as His Holiness’s personal translator. “It’s ludicrous because on the one hand they’re trying to destroy everything that resembles Buddhist practice; on the other they want to choose the reincarnation.”
Beijing denies human-rights violations in Tibet, but advocacy groups and U.N. monitors paint a grim picture of a land systematically surveilled and repressed. For the over 140,000 Tibetans in exile, the fear is that the Dalai Lama’s passing could deal a major blow to hopes of Tibetan self-rule.
This spiritual succession is not merely a religious event, but a critical flash point amid a struggle for influence over a faith practiced by almost 500 million people.
While the Dalai Lama has served as an outspoken advocate for democracy and human rights, that moral authority may now be co-opted by an authoritarian superpower.
Read more here: https://time-magazine.visitlink.me/K9u9hH
