Free Tibet

On 6 July, the 14th Dalai Lama turned 89, having lived for the last 65 years in exile in India. The Dalai Lama is the physical embodiment of the Tibetan nation and his advancing age brings forth urgent questions for the future of the Tibetan struggle.

In 1959, His Holiness had to flee Lhasa under Chinese persecution and has never returned to Tibet. Since 1959,  thousands of Tibetans have followed His Holiness into exile. This exiled population is estimated to be around 130,000, a fraction of Tibet’s current population, and has a crucial role in amplifying and keeping the Tibetan struggle alive.

With the help of the Indian government and other international donors, there exists an extensive infrastructure of 40 Tibetan settlements in India that comprise monasteries, Tibetan schools, Tibetan medicine hospitals and dispensaries, cultural institutions for performing arts, handicrafts, and literary production. These settlements are sustained by agriculture, handicrafts, small businesses, and overseas remuneration of Tibetans resettled in western nations such as Australia, US, Canada, Switzerland, France, Japan, and others.

In the settlements,  Tibetans in exile have consistently strived to keep alive Tibetan Buddhism, language, and its cultural traditions under very challenging conditions. These settlements are governed by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamshala, a democratically elected Tibetan-Parliament-in-Exile, representing all Tibetans. The trajectory of Tibetan democratisation in exile, though faced with many challenges, speaks to Tibetan people’s democratic aspirations and provides a stark contrast to Chinese authoritarianism.

However, the Tibetan cause has suffered from a lack of international political support in addressing the issue of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. A 2023 Freedom House report identified Tibet as the “least free country in the world.” Chinese religious and political repression and ethnic discrimination in Tibet is well documented, though has yet to produce a commensurate global political response. Since the 1990s, Tibet’s political fate has been held hostage to China’s increasing economic and political accommodation in the international system.

Consequently, since the 1990s, Tibet has largely been framed as a human rights issue or more recently as one of cultural genocide. While this brings attention to the increasing religious repression in Tibet, it skirts the question of Tibetan self-determination. As voiced by the Dalai Lama, as well as CTA, there is a persistent quest for “genuine autonomy” for all Tibetan people in all Tibetan areas under Chinese rule.

At the same time, there are Tibetans all over the world who aspire to total independence of Tibet from China. A decision on either of these choices has to be made solely by the Tibetan people. The Chinese state at the moment offers no avenues of discussion on any possibility for resolution of the Tibet issue, claiming Tibet as an integral part of China and denying any repression.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, a window has opened with the US incrementally stepping up its support for Tibet. There have been a number of significant developments on the issue in the US with the potential  to lay the groundwork for more robust international support for Tibet. One such development is the issue of the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama. It is certain that the 14th Dalai Lama’s eventual succession will become a battle between China and the Tibetans for political and religious legitimacy, with long term implications for the future of the Tibetan struggle.

Recognising this, in 2020, the US passed the Tibet Policy Support Act, unequivocally declaring that the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama is a religious issue, solely to be decided by the Tibetan people, brooking no involvement of the Chinese government. This Act goes beyond the US position of recognising human rights abuses in Tibet and acknowledges the religious agency of the Tibetans to decide their own affairs.

Historically, the lineages of  Tibetan lamas have played an integral role in shaping the geo-politics of Tibet, Mongolia, and China. This is likely to be repeated on a much larger stage when the 14th Dalai Lama passes away. The 15th reincarnation will have an unprecedented political context far beyond the borders of China and Tibet, and will have foreign policy implications for US, India, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, Russia, Bhutan, Nepal.

The Dalai Lama has declared that he will not “reincarnate” in occupied Tibet. This leaves open the possibility of the 15th reincarnation in other areas where significant populations of Tibetan Buddhists reside. This includes Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, and the entire Indian Himalayan belt from Ladakh to Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh. It is certain that the China will declare their own candidate for the Dalai Lama, as they did for the 11th Panchen Lama. In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognised six year old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. Within 72 hours of being identified, the Chinese authorities had kidnapped the boy and his family. China then introduced Gyaltsen Norbu as their choice for the Panchen Lama who continues to occupy the lineage.

Norbu is a member of  the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that advises China’s United Front Work Department tasked with intelligence gathering, influence operations, and co-opting elites in Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang to neutralise political opposition to the Communist Party of China.

The Chinese Panchen Lama enjoys little legitimacy among Tibetans. However, over the last three decades, China has worked systematically to tighten its grip on the system by passing multiple decrees stipulating that any “reincarnation” must be approved by the state. In this context, the 2020 Tibet Policy Support Act and the subsequent 2024 Tibet Resolve Act have become significant in shaping the US and possibly a global response to the next reincarnation.

The Resolve Tibet Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden on 12 July 2024 with overwhelming bipartisan support, promises enhanced US support for the Tibetan cause. The Resolve Act has three significant provisions worth noting. Firstly, it provides a statutory definition of Tibet to include Tibetan areas outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China and in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces.

This aligns with the CTA’s long-standing demand of recognising these areas as part of Tibet in any solution to the Tibetan issue. TAR was formed in 1965 by separating Central Tibet from Tibetan areas of present Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. The Dalai Lama and the CTA have consistently rejected this fragmentation of Tibet by China. The Resolve Act territorially maps contemporary Tibet to its cultural and historic space in a substantive recognition of the Dalai Lama’s position.

Secondly, the Resolve Act also acknowledges China’s active disinformation campaign concerning Tibetan history, presenting Tibet as a part of China since ancient times. Recognising this, the Act tasks the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues to counter this narrative. Finally, the Resolve Act intends to build international opinion on Tibet towards a negotiated settlement and demands that China resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama that was suspended in 2010.

While it would be too ambitious to imagine that the Tibet issue may become a core issue in any future US-China diplomatic effort, the political support for Tibet in Congress can definitely be leveraged to create more institutional checks on China’s repressive policies in Tibet, and greater international concert on support for the Tibetan community, both inside Tibet and globally can leverage this support for the crucial upcoming issue of reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama.

In the next few years, the Tibetan movement is poised for a transformative change as it negotiates the traditionally destabilising process of reincarnation. Global support recognising sole Tibetan agency in recognising the next Dalai Lama would be crucial to the future of the Tibetan movement and the Tibetan nation.

This article was published by the Australian Institute for International Affairs.