Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is becoming less influential, both abroad and in Tibet, but his suggestion that he will not reincarnate remains a “betrayal” of the religion and the nation, a top Chinese official said yesterday.
China says the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, is a violent separatist. The Buddhist monk denies espousing violence and says that he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is these days being received by fewer foreign leaders, because of the anger such visits draw from China.
Photo: AFP
Zhu Weiqun (朱維群), chairman of the ethnic and religious affairs committee of the top advisory body to China’s National People’s Congress, said such meetings would cause these people “who do not know right from wrong” to “lose status” in the eyes of Chinese.
“At the same time, the international media is less interested in the Dalai Lama,” Zhu said on the sidelines of the parliamentary session.
Even in Tibet, he is exerting less influence, as demonstrated by the decline in the number of people immolating themselves, Zhu added.
Dozens of Tibetans have set themselves ablaze to protest Chinese rule over the past six years. The Dalai Lama dismisses claims that he encourages the immolations.
“I think that Tibet’s development ... has made the situation in Tibet better, and this is the basic reason for the fall in the Dalai Lama’s international standing,” Zhu said.
Zhu also accused the Dalai Lama of betraying the Tibetan religion and the nation by saying there might be no more reincarnations.
Tibetan Buddhism holds that the soul of a senior lama is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death. China says the tradition must continue and that it must approve the next Dalai Lama, even though the Dalai Lama has suggested the title could end when he dies.
“One minute he will reincarnate as a foreigner ... the next as a woman. If you gave him a jar of honey, he will happily tell you that in his next life he will be a bee,” added Zhu, who was involved in Beijing’s prior failed efforts to talk to the Dalai Lama’s representatives.
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