Wed July 2, 2025

Dharamshala, India/Hong Kong CNN  —

The Dalai Lama has announced that he will have a successor after his death, continuing a centuries-old tradition that has become a flashpoint in the struggle with China’s Communist Party over Tibet’s future.

Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader made the declaration on Wednesday in a video message to religious elders gathering in Dharamshala, India, where the Nobel Peace laureate has lived since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese communist rule in 1959.

“I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Dalai Lama said in the pre-recorded video, citing requests he received over the years from Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists urging him to do so.

“The Gaden Phodrang Trust has sole authority to recognize the future reincarnation; no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he added, using the formal name for the office of the Dalai Lama.

The office should carry out the procedures of search and recognition of the future dalai lama “in accordance with past tradition,” he said, without revealing further details on the process.

The Dalai Lama has previously stated that when he is about 90 years old, he will consult the high lamas of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan public to re-evaluate whether the institution of the dalai lama should continue.

Wednesday’s announcement – delivered days before his 90th birthday this Sunday – sets the stage for a high-stakes battle over his succession, between Tibetan leaders in exile and China’s atheist Communist Party, which insists it alone holds the authority to approve the next dalai lama.

In a memoir published in March, the Dalai Lama states that his successor will be born in the “free world” outside China, urging his followers to reject any candidate selected by Beijing.

That could lead to the emergence of two rival dalai lamas: one chosen by his predecessor, the other by the Chinese Communist Party, experts say.

“Both the Tibetan exile community and the Chinese government want to influence the future of Tibet, and they see the next Dalai Lama as the key to do so,” said Ruth Gamble, an expert in Tibetan history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

Samdhong Rinpoche, a senior official at the Dalai Lama’s office, told reporters on Wednesday that any further information about the procedures or methods of the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation would not be revealed to the public until the succession takes place. 

 Struggle over succession

Over a lifetime in exile, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has become synonymous with Tibet and its quest for genuine autonomy under Beijing’s tightening grip on the Himalayan region.

From his adopted hometown of Dharamshala, where he established a government-in-exile, the spiritual leader has unified Tibetans at home and in exile and elevated their plight onto the global stage.

That has made the Dalai Lama a persistent thorn in the side of Beijing, which denounces him as a dangerous “separatist” and a “wolf in monk’s robes.”

Since the 1970s, the Dalai Lama has maintained that he no longer seeks full independence for Tibet, but “meaningful” autonomy that would allow Tibetans to preserve their distinct culture, religion and identity. His commitment to the nonviolent “middle way” approach has earned him international support and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama has long been wary of Beijing’s attempt to meddle with the reincarnation system of Tibetan Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhists believe in the circle of rebirth, and that when an enlightened spiritual master like the Dalai Lama dies, he will be able to choose the place and time of his rebirth through the force of compassion and prayer.

But the religious tradition has increasingly become a battleground for the control of Tibetan hearts and minds, especially since the contested reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest figure in the religion.

In 1995, years after the death of the 10th Panchen Lama, Beijing installed its own panchen lama in defiance of the Dalai Lama, whose pick for the role – a six-year-old boy – has since vanished from public view.

Under Tibetan tradition, the dalai lamas and the panchen lamas have long played key roles in recognizing each other’s reincarnations. Experts believe Beijing will seek to interfere in the current Dalai Lama’s succession in a similar way.

“There’s a whole series of high-level reincarnated lamas cultivated by the Chinese government to work with it inside Tibet. (Beijing) will call on all of those to help establish the Dalai Lama that they pick inside Tibet,” Gamble said. “There’s been a long-term plan to work toward this.”

Beijing has repeatedly said that the reincarnation of all Living Buddhas – or high-ranking lamas in Tibetan Buddhism – must comply with Chinese laws and regulations, with search and identification conducted in China and approved by the central government.

A “resolution of gratitude” statement released by Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders gathering in Dharamshala on Wednesday said they “strongly condemn the People’s Republic of China’s usage of reincarnation subject for their political gain” and “will never accept it.”

For his part, the current Dalai Lama has made clear that any candidate appointed by Beijing will hold no legitimacy in the eyes of Tibetans or followers of Tibetan Buddhism.

“It is totally inappropriate for Chinese Communists, who explicitly reject religion, including the idea of past and future lives, to meddle in the system of reincarnation of lamas, let alone that of the Dalai Lama,” he writes in his latest memoir, “Voice for the Voiceless.”

The Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage has long served as a bellwether for the level of tensions between the world’s two most populous countries.

June 21, 2025 at 8:51 a.m

Mount Kailash, seen in 2017, is a site Hindus believe to be the dwelling of the deity Lord Shiva. (Christoph Mohr/Picture-alliance/DPA/AP)

By Joshua Yang

A religious pilgrimage from India into China facilitated by both governments has resumed for the first time in five years — the latest sign of a cautious thaw in the contentious relationship between the world’s two most populous nations.

The first batch of Indian pilgrims taking part in the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra — named for the two Tibetan sacred sites the route traverses — left New Delhi on Sunday morning and crossed the mountainous border into China’s Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday. The group of roughly 40 pilgrims acclimatized to the high Himalayan altitudes in the northern Indian state of Sikkim before setting off for a cross-border mountain pass 14,000 feet above sea level. The pilgrimage is set to conclude June 27 at Tibet’s Manasarovar Lake, in the shadow of Mount Kailash, a site Hindus believe to be the dwelling of the deity Lord Shiva. The sites are also sacred to adherents of other religions, including Buddhism and Jainism.

Upender Rao, 64, a lawyer from Hyderabad in southern India, considers himself “most fortunate” to be one of 750 pilgrims chosen by lottery to take part in the trip, which India’s Foreign Ministry planned meticulously. “I am a devotee of Lord Shiva,” so “I want to see the world of Lord Shiva,” he said in a phone interview. “That’s my dream.” It is a dream that Rao has had to put on hold for the past five years. The 2020 pilgrimage was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent pilgrimages were halted after June 2020, when Chinese and Indian soldiers clashed over disputed territory high in the Himalayas. At least four Chinese and 20 Indian soldiers died in the conflicts, which both sides fought without modern weapons in an apparent effort to avoid escalation.

The Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage has long served as a bellwether for the state of relations between India and China, which have clashed sporadically for six decades along a disputed, 2,100-mile-long (3,400-kilometer-long) land border stretching from central Asia to the edges of Southeast Asia.

An Indian soldier stands near the Nathu La border crossing between India and China, which is near the Sikkim state capital of Gangtok, on July 4, 2006. 

The border is not the only politically fraught area the pilgrims traverse: Beijing imposes tight restrictions on religious freedom in Tibet, which China annexed in 1951 over the objections of India. Since 1959, India has hosted the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist religious leader, and the Tibetan government in exile. The pilgrimage, which crosses into Tibet, could inflame those sensitivities. According to Rao, the Indian Foreign Ministry’s predeparture briefing warned the pilgrims not to praise or talk about the Dalai Lama.

Cooperation to facilitate the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra dates to the mid-20th century, when the pilgrimage was brought up during talks to settle a boundary line between the two countries.

In the resulting 1954 Sino-Indian agreement, the logistics of the pilgrimage were settled — but the location of the border was not. As tensions mounted over disputed territory, China invaded India in 1962. China’s decisive victory in the subsequent war brought China-India relations, and the pilgrimage, to a halt. Nearly two decades later in 1981, a new generation of Chinese and Indian leaders negotiated to reopen the pilgrimage, talks that served as a precursor to negotiating a full renormalization of ties in 1988. Still, the countries failed to agree on a boundary line, and tense border standoffs — in 1987, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017 — remained a mainstay of India-China relations.

After the clashes of 2020, which brought the bilateral relationship to its lowest point in four decades, China sealed the Tibetan border with India, while India banned 59 Chinese-made apps — including TikTok — and vowed to become self-reliant and separate itself from Chinese imports. India also increased its security engagement with the Quad, the informal diplomatic grouping of the United States, India, Japan and Australia, in a move toward countering Chinese power and influence.

At the same time, India and China have both backed away from further aggression. “There’s always a risk of unintended clashes” at the border, said Ashok Kantha, the Indian ambassador to China from 2014 to 2016. “I don’t think either side would like that to happen. Finding a modus vivendi, even though we may have our different interests that are not always convergent, is most desirable.” Since the nadir of June 2020 — and minor clashes in 2021 and 2022 — the India-China relationship has shown signs of a slow recovery. Last October, the two sides announced an agreement to resume regular border patrols and committed “to bring the relationship back to sound and steady development at an early date,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Visits between top officials, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, followed. Beijing and New Delhi both have touted the restoration of the Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage as one of the chief diplomatic breakthroughs to emerge from the rapprochement. China hopes the pilgrims will not only be “spiritually enriched but also enjoy hospitality of Chinese people,” Yu Jing, the spokeswoman of the Chinese Embassy in Delhi, said in a social media post. “From our side, there was interest” in resuming the pilgrimage, “because this resonates quite strongly at the popular level,” said Kantha, who worked on expanding pilgrimage routes during his tenure as ambassador. “The number of pilgrims is relatively small, but there is sentimental value attached to” the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra.Yet an agreement such as this is “low-hanging fruit,” Kantha cautioned. The major geopolitical questions in the India-China relationship remain unresolved: Although last October’s agreement re-established buffer zones along the border, no progress has been made on demarcating the boundary line between the two countries, and there has yet to be a drawdown from the high number of soldiers deployed to the border region by both sides since 2020. The India-China relationship was further strained during last month’s India-Pakistan clashes, which saw Pakistan using Chinese-made jets to shoot down Indian warplanes. Beijing’s implicit support for its longtime ally during the conflict “was not very helpful,” Kantha said. “The level of deference between China-Pakistan came to the fore and created serious misgivings in India. I don’t think that has helped us rebuild relations.” Normalizing relations “will be easier said than done,” said Chietigj Bajpaee, a senior research fellow at Chatham House who specializes in Asian affairs. “The resumption of the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra is more symbolism than substance given the bad blood in the bilateral relationship.” For all the high-level geopolitics at play, though, Rao was pleasantly surprised to encounter a more personal reality on the ground. The pilgrims spent their first night in China at Kangma, a village some 100 miles (about 161 kilometers) behind the border, and met Tibetans for the first time. “Their hospitality is very good,” Rao said.