CANBERRA, Australia — Any attempt by China to find its own reincarnation of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama may result in two different successors and a “lifelong headache” for Beijing, the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile said.
The current Dalai Lama, 87, is the 14th reincarnation of the leader of Tibetan Buddhism and when he dies there will be a search for his successor. The new reincarnation is traditionally found inside Tibet; however, with the region under Chinese control since 1959, there have been suggestions the next Dalai Lama might be found elsewhere.
Penpa Tsering, president of the government-in-exile, warned Beijing that if it tried to appoint its own reincarnation there would be two Dalai Lamas, during a speech Wednesday in Australia’s capital, Canberra.
“This is going to be a lifelong problem,” he said. “So does the Chinese government want a lifelong headache on their hands or not? It’s something the Chinese government can chew on.”
Tibet is currently a “huge prison where nobody can go in, nobody can go out,” Tsering told the National Press Club. He refuted suggestions by the Chinese government that the region is a “socialist paradise.”
“If Tibet is a socialist paradise, then why doesn’t the Chinese government allow others to see the paradise for themselves?” he asked rhetorically, adding that the region has no political or civil rights.
Tibet has been an autonomous region of China since the People’s Liberation Army entered the country in 1950, leading to the eventual flight of the Dalai Lama to India nine years later. The Tibetan spiritual leader and the government-in-exile are currently situated in the Indian town of Dharamshala.
During his speech, Tsering urged Australia to sanction Chinese officials for “crimes against humanity” in Tibet, criticizing Canberra for failing to apply its international punishments equally.
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and relations between Canberra and Beijing only recently began to improve following the election of a center-left Labor government in May 2022. Ties collapsed in 2020 when China imposed trade barriers on some Australian exports.
“We know for a fact that Australian government has sanctioned Iran, Burma, Russia, but when it comes to China, then everyone calms down a little bit,” he said. “When it comes to bigger countries, they get away with everything.”
