Himalayan News Service

Hong Kong, July 20:

The successor to the ageing Tibetan spiritual and temporal head Dalai Lama would be chosen with the blessings of the Chinese top brass in Beijing, a top leader of the Lhasa-based Tibetan government has said.

The South China Morning Post quoted Tibetan government chairman Qiangba Puncog as saying that if the 70-year-old Dalai Lama died in exile in India, his reincarnation (successor) would be chosen as per Buddhist traditions but under supervision of the Chinese government.

Puncog was here in Hong Kong in connection with the Tibetan Week being celebrated here.

The issue of the Dalai Lama’s successor could lead to another controversy between the exiled Tibetan leadership and the Chinese after the 1995 controversy over the installation of Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama by Beijing.

China had refused to recognise another boy chosen by the Dalai Lama to be the next Panchen Lama. The exiled Tibetan leadership said it had no idea of the whereabouts of the boy selected by the Dalai Lama. It accused China of keeping the boy under detention.

The Panchen Lama is the second highest spiritual leader in the Tibetan religious establishment after the Dalai Lama.

The third in line - Karmapa Lama - had fled from a monastery near Lhasa to India in January 2000. He is now living in a monastery near Dharamsala in India’s Himachal Pradesh state.

Puncog said there was no question of the Dalai Lama returning to Lhasa till he completely gave up the demand for a separate Tibetan homeland.

He was quoted saying that the Dalai Lama had had trained Tibetans in military operations.