China Is Already Trying to Control Who the Next Dalai Lama Will Be
Time, by Charlie Campbell
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially rejects the existence of God, the afterlife, and the immortal soul. Back in 1954, Mao Zedong even whispered to His Holiness that “religion is poison.” But the Great Helmsman also vowed “to exterminate the bourgeoisie and capitalism in China,” and today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) has more billionaires and sells more wares than any other nation in history. The party has proved as malleable to religion as to capitalism, spending billions on the rejuvenation of Buddhist shrines from Sri Lanka to Nepal.
And the officially atheist CCP is now preparing to assert control over the spirit world: when His Holiness dies, his reincarnation must be “approved by the central government,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning reiterated last July. There is precedent. When in 1995 the Dalai Lama named a Tibetan child as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama—Tibetan Buddhism’s second highest position—China abducted the boy and installed a state-backed figure instead. The whereabouts of the Dalai Lama’s choice remain unknown—a vanishing that, despite China’s wealth and technological advances, reveals a deep anxiety regarding its claim over Tibet’s land and people, and which its leadership is using diplomatic pressure to assuage...
“Some people believe that we should not talk about [the succession] at all, but China is already planning for it,” Penpa Tsering, the Sikyong or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Central Administration (CTA) government-in-exile, tells TIME. “If there are two Dalai Lamas, it will be a lifelong headache. So, does China want a lifelong headache?”
https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/china-dalai-lama-succession-tibet/