The Dalai Lama’s succession has become a prickly issue, as the Nobel Prize winner’s health declines, as witnessed by his recent hospital visits for trapped nerves, abdominal discomfort and gallstone surgery.
He has suggested that his incarnation might be found outside of Chinese-controlled territory, or even that Tibetans themselves could order a vote on whether to continue an institution that once gave one monk both spiritual and temporal sway over Tibet.
“There definitely will be two,” Khedroob Thondup, a member of the exiled Tibetan parliament, said when asked how he thought the succession would play out.
“It will depend on who’s in power in Beijing. If it’s the present regime, they will go out of their way to choose their own,” said Khedroob Thondup, a nephew of the Dalai Lama.
Chinese officials have prevaricated when directly asked recently about how the succession could be handled.
“Chinese people have a custom of not asking when an aged person is going to pass away,” Zhu Weiqun, a Communist Party vice-minister responsible for co-opting Tibetans and other ethnic minorities, told a news conference last month. “The Dalai Lama once met Chairman Mao. We hope he lives a long life and we hope he can resolve the question of his succession while he is still with us.”
Yet there is a level of worry in official circles about the potential for instability when the Dalai Lama passes away.
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