The aging Tibetan spiritual leader is looking to prevent Beijing from taking advantage of a power vacuum that might arise after his death.
The Dalai Lama gathered senior Tibetan Buddhist monks on Wednesday in Dharamsala, the Himalayan town where he has lived in exile for over half a century, to chart the future of his spiritual office — and how it might survive growing pressure from China.
In a recorded video statement to the meeting, the Dalai Lama offered few specifics, but made a suggestion that was seen as blocking any Chinese influence from the process of identifying the future reincarnation of the Tibetan spiritual leader. He said that the Dalai Lama’s office has “sole authority” to recognize such a reincarnation.
“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.
The Dalai Lama fled China in 1959 after the Chinese army invaded Tibet to bring the region under the control of the Communist Party. He has lived in India ever since, helping to establish a democracy in exile while traveling the world to advocate for true autonomy and cultural and religious freedom for the Tibetan people.
The Chinese government sees the octogenarian leader as a separatist who seeks independence for Tibet. In his absence, Beijing has tried to bring elements of the Tibetan religious institution under state control, and erase Tibetan culture to absorb the people into one nation united around the Communist Party.
Traditionally, the search for a new Dalai Lama begins only after the current one dies. It can take years to identify the child believed to be his reincarnation, and more than a decade to educate and prepare him for the role. The fear that China will exploit that gap has long shaped the Dalai Lama’s strategy ever since he went into exile. He has said the Chinese are waiting for his death to crush the movement for Tibetan autonomy.
The Dalai Lama relinquished his political leadership role in the Tibetan exile government in 2011, a decision intended to strengthen the democratic structure of the Tibetan movement. Since then, Tibetan refugees scattered around the world have elected their political leader through a direct vote.
In recent years, the Dalai Lama has told his followers that he is considering other possibilities for the future of his role after him, an apparent effort to prevent Beijing from moving into the gap left by his absence.
He has said that his successor will be born in a free country, indicating that the next Dalai Lama could come from among Tibetan exiles, who number about 140,000, half of them in India. He has also expressed being open to a successor who isn’t a child, or not even male, in a break with centuries of tradition.
He has said that he would make the future of the institution, and his reincarnation, clearer around his 90th birthday, which is being celebrated in Dharamsala this week.
