China's bid to control Dalai Lama’s reincarnation raises religious freedom concerns

Beijing, Aug 15 (AHN) The Chinese government repeatedly claims to uphold freedom of religious belief, but such assertions ring hollow amid the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) effort to control the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

For Tibetan Buddhists, the recognition of reincarnated lamas is an essential mechanism of doctrinal continuity and spiritual succession, rather than merely a religious ceremony. If the community is denied the authority to decide this fundamental matter, assurances of religious freedom become meaningless, a report has stated.

“Few episodes in modern political history are as darkly ironic as an officially atheist regime attempting to preside over a religious ritual whose underlying beliefs it explicitly rejects. Yet, this is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) is determined to achieve by determining the identity of the next Dalai Lama. On the one hand, the CCP continues to proclaim that religion is “the opium of the people”; on the other, it insists on certifying the reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhism’s highest spiritual leader and thus determining his legitimacy,” a report in ‘Providence’ detailed.

According to the report, in recent years, Beijing has intensified efforts to promote a “shared consciousness of the Chinese nation”, alongside legislation and administrative policies aimed at advancing assimilation.

It noted that the Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity, adopted during China’s annual “Two Sessions” and which came into force last month, further institutionalised the CCP’s assimilation policies toward ethnic minorities. Under this framework, religious, linguistic, and cultural differences are treated not as forms of diversity deserving protection, but as differences to be integrated into a “single homogeneous national identity.”

By asserting control over the selection of the next Dalai Lama, the report said, the Chinese government could preserve the institution in name while fundamentally altering its religious character. When a religious leader derives authority from the state rather than from the religious community, it said, their spiritual legitimacy is fundamentally compromised.

“Over time, the institution may remain, but its meaning will have been emptied; the outward form will survive, while its soul has been removed. Such an “orchestrated continuity” may ultimately prove to be the most effective means of dismantling a tradition. History repeatedly demonstrates that the vitality of religious faith often exceeds that of political power. Yet history also reminds us that prolonged campaigns of suppression and transformation impose very real costs upon communities and individuals. In the face of such realities, silence itself can become a form of acquiescence,” the report mentioned.

Emphasising that the debate over the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation extends beyond the future of Tibetan Buddhism, the report said that it raises broader questions about the meaning of religious freedom, the proper limits of state authority, and whether, in a pluralistic world, distinct cultures possess the right to preserve and perpetuate themselves according to their own traditions.