According to the president of Tibet’s government-in-exile, any effort by China to locate its own reincarnation of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama may lead to two separate successors and a “lifelong headache” for Beijing.
The 14th reincarnation of the Tibetan Buddhist leader, the present Dalai Lama, is now 87 years old. When he passes away, a search will be conducted for his replacement. The next reincarnation is often discovered within Tibet, but because that country has been ruled by China since 1959, there have been rumors that the next Dalai Lama may be located somewhere else.
In a speech delivered on Wednesday in Canberra, the capital of Australia, Penpa Tsering, the president of the government-in-exile, warned Beijing that if it attempted to choose its own reincarnation, there would be two Dalai Lamas.
This will be an issue for the rest of my life, he remarked. “So, is the Chinese government willing to have a headache for the rest of their lives? The Chinese authorities will find it interesting to chew on.
Tsering told the National Press Club that Tibet is today a “huge prison where nobody can go in, nobody can go out.” He denied claims made by the Chinese administration that the area is a “socialist paradise.”
He posed the rhetorical question, “If Tibet is a socialist paradise, then why doesn’t the Chinese government allow others to see the paradise for themselves?” He said that the area had no political or civil rights.
Since the People’s Liberation Army invaded China in 1950, when the Dalai Lama ultimately fled to India nine years later, Tibet has been a sovereign territory of China. The exiled government of Tibet and its spiritual head are presently based in the Indian town of Dharamshala.
In his address, Tsering criticized Canberra for not applying its international sanctions evenly and asked Australia to prosecute Chinese officials for “crimes against humanity” in Tibet.
Australia’s largest commercial partner is China, and after a center-left Labor government was elected in May 2022, ties between Canberra and Beijing just recently started to improve. When China placed trade restrictions on certain Australian exports in 2020, relations broke out.
“We know for a fact that the Australian government has sanctioned Iran, Burma, and Russia, but when it comes to China, then everyone calms down a little bit,” the man stated. “Bigger countries get away with everything when it comes to them.”
