The Dalai Lama at 90

On a cold winter morning in 1937, a party of robed monks arrived at a mud-brick house in the remote village of Taktser, northeastern Tibet. Inside, a two-year-old boy named Lhamo Thondup reached out and correctly identified items that belonged to someone he had never met, because, as the belief goes, he once was that someone.

Thus began the life of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

He was just 15 when Mao Zedong’s Red Army invaded Tibet, forcing the young monk into the impossible: to lead a spiritual nation through geopolitical hell. Four years later, after a failed uprising, he fled across the Himalayas to India on horseback. Behind him, monasteries were being razed. Ahead of him, exile.

The Red Army invaded Tibet as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s goal to consolidate national territory and assert sovereignty. As they have done to Hong Kong and Macau, and seeks to do with Taiwan, the CCP claimed Tibet was part of China based on imperial-era boundaries.

So, in October 1950, about 40,000 PLA troops entered eastern Tibet and quickly overwhelmed the small and ill-equipped Tibetan army.

Tibet was forced to sign the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951, agreeing to Chinese sovereignty while supposedly preserving its internal autonomy and religion.

However, repression grew over the years, leading to the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile, and the formal dismantling of Tibetan autonomy.

He has never returned.

And now, 65 years later, the 89-year-old Dalai Lama is on the eve of his 90th birthday, celebrated by millions across the Tibetan plateau and beyond. The ceremonies are rich with music and butter lamps, but beneath the surface lies a much weightier anticipation: as he grows old, will he name his successor? And if so, where will he come from?

A Role Greater Than a Man

To understand the stakes, you need to grasp what the Dalai Lama truly is. He is not just a person, but an institution. “Dalai Lama” translates to “Ocean of Wisdom,” and for centuries, he has embodied both spiritual leadership and temporal power for Tibetans.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is a tulku — a reincarnated being who returns lifetime after lifetime to guide the people. This makes his succession unlike any monarchy or papacy. After death, high lamas and monks search for signs: visions, dreams, or the bending of smoke trails, leading them to a child who may carry the soul of the departed Lama.

But this sacred process has now collided with statecraft and realpolitik.

A Dragon in the Temple

Beijing insists that the next Dalai Lama will be born in China and approved by the Chinese Communist Party. This isn’t just rhetorical chest-pounding. In 1995, after the Dalai Lama named a six-year-old boy as the 11th Panchen Lama (a key figure in identifying the next Dalai Lama), Chinese authorities abducted the boy and his family. He has never been seen since.

In his place, Beijing installed a government-approved “Panchen Lama”. Among Tibetan Buddhists, he is widely rejected. The real one, if still alive, is now about 35.

It was the first shot in a long game: control the Panchen Lama, control the next Dalai Lama. The Chinese state is betting on spiritual engineering to legitimize its rule over Tibet for generations.

So when the current Dalai Lama, now living in Dharamshala, India, hints that his own successor could be born in India, or anywhere outside Chinese-controlled territory, it’s more than a theological statement. To Beijing, it’s a provocation and a line in the sand.

A Kingdom in Exile

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since his escape, and the town of Dharamshala has become the capital-in-exile for Tibet’s spiritual and political leadership. Over the years, India has played a careful game, offering sanctuary but avoiding confrontation with China. That might soon change.

If His Holiness declares that his reincarnation will take place in India, or that a council of exiled monks will guide the process, it could rupture the uneasy balance between the two Asian giants. China has already declared it will not recognize any Dalai Lama chosen outside of its borders. We may be heading toward a future with two Dalai Lamas: one endorsed by Beijing, the other by history.

Traditionally, the search for the next Dalai Lama begins after the current one passes. High lamas travel the land looking for omens and clues that point to a child embodying the late leader’s spirit. This time, however, the 14th Dalai Lama has signaled a radical departure from that custom.

He has said his reincarnation may come while he is still alive.

He has also insisted that he alone will determine how that reincarnation is found, nullifying Beijing’s claim to spiritual authority. “No recognition or acceptance should be given to a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including agents of the People’s Republic of China,” he declared.

For Beijing, that is intolerable.

The Chinese Communist Party views religion as a domain of control. It claims the authority to recognize the reincarnations of Tibetan lamas, based on a 1793 imperial decree issued during the Qing Dynasty. Critics note that this edict has only been used a handful of times, and not once to select a Dalai Lama.

Nonetheless, China is already preparing its move. Government-linked lamas, monasteries under state surveillance, and propaganda campaigns are laying the groundwork for a “Chinese-approved Dalai Lama”.

Faith, Power, and a Shifting World

Despite the Communist Party’s efforts, the Dalai Lama still holds influence over Tibetans and Tibet itself, a strategic region with a history of impulses tugging towards self-rule.

And whoever controls Tibet also controls…

• The world’s highest and largest plateau, perfect for pressing any military advantage over China’s giant neighbouring rival, India
• The so-called ‘water tower of Asia’, supplying around two billion people
• Renewable energy, including China’s plans for the world’s biggest dam, and
• Major mineral deposits like lithium, a key input for the energy transition.

And spiritually? The Dalai Lama remains one of the most beloved moral figures of the modern age, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose message of compassion and mindfulness resonates far beyond the monastic walls. He’s met with world leaders, won the Nobel Peace Prize (1989), and is widely respected as a unifying moral figure. His books are bestsellers.

China does not like this. While the Dalai Lama once said, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness”, in Beijing’s eyes, kindness is not a strategy. In fact, the very idea of an independent spiritual authority that transcends borders, and resists co-optation, is a threat.

Beijing has tried to erase him from history:

• Banning his photo in Tibet
• Controlling religious education
• Pressuring universities and governments not to host him

In Apple in China, Patrick McGee tells of one Apple engineer recalling getting ready in the morning at a hotel in Shenzhen and glancing at the international news playing silently on his TV as he spoke with his wife back home in California. “The Dalai Lama came on,” he recounts. “And I said to my wife, ‘That’s weird, the Dalai Lama is…’” Then the TV screen went blank. China’s censors had cut the feed within seconds.

On Chinese social media, you will not see a single search result for ‘Dalai Lama’. No public mention of his name is allowed.

And America has seized on this in its rivalry with China. China has long feared that the US is using Tibet as a way to weaken it. Indeed, it is on record that the CIA funded Tibetan insurgencies in the 1950s and 60s as a part of the West-East ideological battle of that era. These efforts have faded as US-China ties warmed from the 70s. With the renewed rivalry in the 21st century, China is becoming increasingly irritated with each new US law on Tibet, whether…

• The 2002 law supporting the preservation of Tibetan identity
• The 2020 law on the right of Tibetans to choose their own religious leaders, or
• Last year’s law countering Beijing’s disinformation about the Dalai Lama, while urging China to re-enter a dialogue with him.

Therefore, as the Dalai Lama turns 90, he represents something larger than politics: a soft power that cannot be suppressed by steel or cement.

This is no ordinary birthday.

This is the beginning of the last great spiritual succession struggle of our time.