![]() Observers have ridiculed the incongruity of a staunchly atheist regime participating in Buddhist reincarnation affairs. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) sudden enthusiasm for reincarnation is puzzling given its longstanding hostility to religion. Geng was referring to legal measures passed by the Chinese government in 2007, authorizing itself to determine which Buddhist lamas were “eligible to reincarnate” ( The State Council of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), July 18, 2007). In 2019, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shaung reiterated Beijing’s stance once again, stating “the reincarnation of living Buddhas, including the Dalai Lama, must comply with Chinese laws and regulations and follow religious rituals and historical conventions” ( India Today, November 11, 2019). He stated, “the reincarnation of living Buddhas is a religious and politic issue as Buddhism impacts Tibet’s society and politics and the central government must have a determining say in the matter” ( Global Times, December 10, 2017). ![]() In 2017, Zhu Weiqun, Chair of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative, reaffirmed this position. “The title of Dalai Lama is conferred by the central government, which has hundreds of years of history,” said Chinse Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying in 2014 ( China Daily, September 11, 2014). The Chinese government was incensed it vowed to install its own 15th Dalai Lama after the demise of the incumbent-with or without his consent ( Tibetan Review, December 3, 2015). In a 2011 statement, he laid out several different succession scenarios, one of which was the possibility that he might bring the lineage to an end ( Office of his Holiness the Dalai Lama, September 24, 2011). As the 86-year-old Tibetan leader, who has spent most of his life in exile, advances further in age, there is growing uncertainty about where, or whether, his reincarnation might appear. A strange battle is waiting to unfold at the center of the Sino-Tibetan conflict: the fight over the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation.
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