Imagine for a moment that Cuba picked the next Pope. That is the scenario which Lobsang Sangay, the then-Sikyong (the Tibetan government-in-exile’s head of state), asked the world to consider several years ago in light of growing concerns that the Chinese Communist party (CCP) would seek to select the next Dalai Lama. Now such a possibility – that Beijing will attempt to impose their own man at the top of Tibetan Buddhism – seems increasingly plausible.
Last week, China’s State Council issued a white paper on Tibet to mark 70 years since the signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement, which incorporated Tibet into the People’s Republic of China. The title of the document – ‘Tibet since 1951: Liberation, development and prosperity’ – makes it all too clear this is CCP propaganda at its worst. It attempts to rewrite history by failing to acknowledge that this agreement was signed under duress. It also ignores the fact that Beijing has not upheld its promises to grant the Tibetan people autonomy, in particular the right to practice their own religion free from interference.
Over the past seven decades, the CCP has attempt to both destroy and, failing that, control Tibetan Buddhism. At the heart of this is the campaign of vilification against the Dalai Lama. Those who continue to revere His Holiness, by keeping portraits of him in their homes or celebrating his birthday, find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Monks, too, find themselves under heavy surveillance and subject to Communist party indoctrination.
But these campaigns are not enough for the CPP, which – as the white paper sets out – are clearly planning to legitimise Beijing’s role in the succession of the Dalai Lama. The paper seeks to establish a precedent that selection of Tibetan Buddhism’s top job has, since the Qing Empire, been subject to the approval of China’s central government.
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