OPINION
Ashu Maan* examines the escalating dispute between the exiled Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Trust and the Chinese government over who has the authority to select the 15th Dalai Lama, and how this succession battle could result in a split leadership with lasting religious and geopolitical consequences.
When the 14th Dalai Lama turned ninety in July 2025, he finally said what Tibetans everywhere had been hoping to hear for years. In a formal statement from his home in Dharamshala, tucked into the Indian Himalayas, he confirmed that the centuries-old institution of the Dalai Lama would continue after him. It was just one sentence — but it hit like a thunderclap in Beijing, in New Delhi, in Washington, and across monasteries stretching from Ladakh to Kathmandu.
Behind that single line lies a much bigger question, one that no religious body, government, or international institution has ever really settled: who actually gets to decide who the next Dalai Lama will be? For most of Tibetan history, this was purely a Buddhist matter, worked out by senior monks, oracles, and search parties reading signs in sacred lakes. Today, it’s become one of the most closely watched geopolitical flashpoints in Asia — wrapped up in China’s claims over Tibet, India’s tense relationship with its northern neighbor, and the simple fact that millions of people see this one elderly monk as a living embodiment of compassion.
What happens next isn’t just about who leads Tibetan Buddhism. It’s a test of whether a government can install a religious leader by decree — and whether faith, once cut off from the land that shaped it, can still hold on to its authority.
China’s Case: Sovereignty Comes First
Beijing builds its argument on a mix of history and law. Under the 2007 regulation governing reincarnation, any recognized “Living Buddha” has to go through government vetting, and the most senior figures — including the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama — need approval from the central government itself. Officials frequently point to the golden urn system as the “authentic” historical precedent: introduced in 1793 under the Qing dynasty, it involved drawing candidate names by lot from a ceremonial urn, overseen by imperial officials.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has stated that this imperial legacy gives Beijing the authority to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, and that any recognition carried out abroad would be considered illegitimate. A March 2025 government white paper on human rights in the Tibet Autonomous Region — which Chinese authorities call Xizang — says that the state and its sanctioned Buddhist associations already oversee the reincarnation process, and that dozens of reincarnations have been approved this way in recent years.
For Beijing, this isn’t really framed as a religious debate at all. It’s framed as a matter of territorial sovereignty and domestic law — with Chinese officials describing the succession question, like Tibetan affairs generally, as an internal issue that no foreign government or organization has any business weighing in on.
The Dalai Lama’s Case: You Can’t Legislate Faith
The Dalai Lama’s response is straightforward: a government that doesn’t even recognize religion has no standing to name a religious leader, and reincarnation is a matter of spiritual realization, not state authority. In his July 2025 statement, he restated the position he first took in 2011 — that no outside party has the right to interfere, and that the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the nonprofit he set up to manage his affairs, is the only body with the authority to recognize his reincarnation.
Samdhong Rinpoche, a senior official with the Trust, has said the next Dalai Lama won’t necessarily be Tibetan and could be of any gender — a notable break from past assumptions about the role. The Dalai Lama has previously suggested his rebirth would happen outside China, but his latest statement didn’t repeat that specific promise. Some analysts have read that as a small, deliberate opening — a narrow door left ajar for further dialogue with Beijing.
What Comes Next?
The scenario getting the most attention — and causing the most concern — is a split succession: one child recognized by the Gaden Phodrang Trust in exile, another installed inside Tibet by Chinese authorities, most likely through the golden urn process. With neither side showing any sign of willingness to cooperate, analysts on both sides largely agree this isn’t just possible — it’s probably likely.
A dual Dalai Lama situation would create real, immediate problems. Monasteries in exile communities across India, Nepal, and the wider diaspora would almost certainly follow the Gaden Phodrang’s choice, while monasteries inside China would likely come under pressure to fall in line behind Beijing’s candidate. Ordinary believers, especially those still living in China, could find themselves caught between personal conviction and official pressure. And even in the best-case scenario — a smooth, uncontested recognition — the child would still need roughly two decades of monastic training before taking on full spiritual authority. That leaves the diaspora’s already fragile institutions to navigate a long leadership vacuum without a unifying figure.
A lot depends on variables still in motion: the state of China-India relations, how much international pressure Beijing faces, and whether the backchannel talks reportedly continuing on and off between Chinese officials and Tibetan exile representatives can produce some kind of shared understanding before the question becomes truly urgent.
The Question That Will Outlive the Answer
Choosing a religious leader is really only part of what’s at stake here. Because this issue sits at the crossroads of religion, identity, history, and geopolitics, it’s expected to keep being debated long after the current Dalai Lama is gone. Tibetan Buddhists insist this belongs to monks, oracles, and centuries of tradition. China insists it belongs to the state. Now that both sides have laid out their positions publicly, a compromise looks harder to imagine than ever.
Whoever the world eventually recognizes as the 15th Dalai Lama will, in a sense, be standing in for the answer to a much bigger question: can a spiritual tradition older than the modern nation-state survive being claimed by one?
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* Ashu Maan is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. His research area is China, with particular focus on China’s atrocities in Tibet.