(TibetanReview.net, Nov02’25) – China rests its right to appoint the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama on false or at best distorted history, the executive had of the Central Tibetan Administration, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, has said while addressing the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Nov 29. He has vowed to hold a global conference on China’s much touted “golden urn decree”, a relic of history dating back to 1793 during its Qing Dynasty period, to clear up the matter.
He has reaffirmed the Tibetan exile leadership’s position that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is a spiritual and religious matter, and therefore cannot be dictated by the Chinese government, all the more because the latter is atheist.
“If the Chinese government truly believes in reincarnation, they should first look for the rebirths of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping,” he has sought to suggest. As regards the future of the Dalai Lama lineage, “it is the Tibetan people who will decide, … not China,” he has asserted.
In this connection, the Tibetan Sikyong has challenged Beijing’s invocation of the so-called “golden urn” lot drawing mechanism for choosing reincarnations of the Dalai Lamas.
He has questioned the true existence of the decree, while the urn was selectively invoked at best, particularly in the case of Beijing’s chosen 11th Panchen Lama of today.
He has reiterated that the Dalai Lama himself – who is 90 years old – has made it clear that his successor will be born outside the People’s Republic of China, in the “free world”.
As regards China’s “Order No. 5” (requiring Chinese approval for Tibetan Buddhist reincarnations), he has said it is being used as a political tool to interfere in religious traditions.
Even as China busies itself to prepare grounds for installing its own 15th Dalai Lama “reincarnation”, the current, 14th Dalai Lama has said at successive long-life offering ceremonies from a wide range of communities of devotees that he expects to live to be more than 130 years old.
The Tibetan Sikyong has welcomed the Dalai Lama’s Jul 2 statement in which he confirmed that the Gaden Phodrang Trust constituted by him will oversee the selection of his reincarnate-successor, saying it has brought “clarity and continuity” to Tibetans worldwide.
The Tibetan Sikyong has also spoken on broader other issues at the Washington, DC, event, focusing on human rights in Tibet, environmental importance of the Tibetan plateau, and Sino-Tibetan relations.