Dalai Lama office decries China claim on successor

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 20

The office of the Dalai Lama has sought to reject renewed claims by China that it alone has the right to choose his next successor. A senior Chinese official had recently said that Beijing will reject any reincarnation of the Dalai Lama born among Tibetan exiles in India or elsewhere.

“The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation cannot be decided by his personal wish or some group of people living in other countries,” a senior Chinese official posted in Tibet told a group of visiting Indian journalists.

In response, the Dalai Lama’s office here flagged a statement by the Sikyong (Ruler) of the Central Tibetan Administration Lobsang Sangay where he said, “If the Chinese leadership believes in rebirth and religion so much, instead of worrying about the reincarnation of a “devil”, they should — as His Holiness himself has remarked — start with finding the reincarnation of revolutionary leaders such as Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping.”