Tibetan spiritual and political leader in exile the Dalai Lama said he is open to naming his successor before he dies, going against centuries of tradition but ensuring that China does not interfere.
"If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I'm alive," he told Japan's Sankei Shimbun in an interview published yesterday.
The options would include electing the successor "democratically" from among high-ranking Tibetan Buddhist monks or naming the successor himself, the Dalai Lama said.
"If China selected my successor after my death, the people of Tibet would not support him as there would be no Tibetan heart in him," he said.
The Dalai Lama, a Nobel laureate with a wide global following, keeps a rigorous schedule at age 72, but Tibetans have increasingly voiced worries about what will happen when he dies.
China, which sent troops into Tibet in 1950, recently officialized a rule that Tibetan living Buddhas need permission from the officially atheist government to be reincarnated.
In 1995, China detained a six-year-old boy that the Dalai Lama had selected as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
China picked its own candidate, who has been paraded around to promote Beijing's rule in Tibet, while the whereabouts and condition of the real Panchen Lama are unknown.
The current Dalai Lama, who is the 14th, was born as Tenzin Gyatso to a farming family. Legend holds that when he was two years old, a search party received signs he was the Dalai Lama's reincarnation and confirmed his identity after he identified prayer beads and other relics of his predecessor.
The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Beijing has denounced his travels overseas including his current trip to Japan, saying he should focus on religion rather than politics.
"I am already half-retired politically and in the position of supreme adviser to the exiled government. Decision making on political matters is already out of my hands," the Dalai Lama said in the interview.
Beijing regularly accuses the Dalai Lama of being a separatist, but he says he is seeking greater autonomy for Tibet.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
RSS