US President Donald Trump passed legislation reaffirming the right of Tibetans to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama, a move described by the Tibetan government in exile as a “powerful message of hope and justice” for the Tibetans living in Tibet.
The United States Congress passed the Tibet Policy and Support Act last week, prompting howls of protest from the Chinese Foreign Ministry calling the legislation an attempt to meddle in Chinese affairs.
“We urge the US side to stop meddling in China’s internal affairs and refrain from enacting the law of these clauses and negative acts, so that it does not further harm our cooperation and our bilateral relations,” the ministry spokesman said. Minister Wang Wenbin last week after the legislation was passed. by the United States Congress.
When news of the new law emerged on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that Beijing had firmly rejected the US legislation and that “issues related to Tibet are internal affairs.”
The legislation, which calls for the establishment of a US consulate in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, also affirms the absolute right of Tibetans to elect a successor to the XIV Dalai Lama and the preservation of Tibet’s environment.
The US law that aims to build an international coalition to ensure that China does not interfere in the selection of the next Dalai comes in the context of Beijing appointing its own Panchen Lama after arresting a child Gedhun Choekyi Nyima in May 1995 who was identified by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in the largest school of Tibetan Buddhism. Human rights groups had described the Panchen Lama as the youngest political prisoner in the world. He was only six years old when he disappeared.
President Xi Jinping’s China, which regards the exiled Dalai Lama as a dangerous “separatist” or separatist, asserts that Beijing’s approval is essential to elect the successor to the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Tibetans have rejected this claim.
“This legislation sends a powerful message of hope and justice to Tibetans within Tibet and reinforces America’s support for the protection of religious freedom, human rights, environmental rights, and the Tibetan democratic exile of the Tibetan people as never before, “said Lobsang Sangay, chairman of Central Tibetan administration in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamshala, said in a statement.
China’s deep interest in projecting its successor to the Dalai Lama and other spiritual leaders is fueled by its aim to divide the world from Tibetan Buddhism, where religious leaders from the four major schools have at some point sought refuge from India. US legislation, in coordination with other countries, will attempt to pressure China to wait for the 14th Dalai Lama, who turned 85 this April, to identify his reincarnation, rather than propose his candidate to divide the Tibetans.
India had established the Dalai Lama in April 1959 and the thousands of Tibetans who followed him in the Himalayan city of Dharamshala, where he has been living in exile after escaping from Tibet when it was invaded by the Chinese. There are more than 80,000 Tibetans living in exile in India; 150,000 more worldwide, especially in the United States and Europe.
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