As his 90th birthday approaches this Sunday, the spiritual leader for millions of followers of Tibetan Buddhism worldwide is bracing for a final showdown with Beijing: the battle over who will control his reincarnation.
On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama announced that he will have a successor after his death, and that his office will have the sole authority to identify his reincarnation.
“I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Nobel Peace laureate said in a video message to religious elders gathering in Dharamshala, India, where he has found refuge since Chinese communist troops put down an armed uprising in his mountainous homeland in 1959.