Why Xi Jinping dreads the Dalai Lama

Xi and the CCP are obsessed with the Dalai Lama, which is outrageous because of their declared contempt for religion and their denigration of the Dalai Lama.

On 21 October 2024, Penpa Tsering, the elected "President" of Tibet made experts from a leading New Delhi think-tank laugh aloud when he advised Chinese President Xi Jinping to order his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to find out reincarnations of the great dead Chinese leaders like Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping. He made this tongue in cheek remark as he was underlining President Xi's feverish obsession with exclusive ownership of the process of discovering the next child reincarnation of the present Dalai Lama.

This obsession of Comrade Xi and his Communist Party looks funny, or is rather outrageous because of its declared contempt for religion and also that all Chinese leaders, right from Mao to Xi himself, have been using the choicest abusive terms in the Communist lexicon for the Dalai Lama. The sixcentury-old institution of the Dalai Lama of Tibet is unique because it occupies the supreme position in both spiritual as well as temporal matters of Tibet, and this inheritance transfers only through reincarnation. It is believed that enlightened souls like the Dalai Lamas and other learned monks have the virtue of guiding their own rebirth process.

After the death of a Dalai Lama, the Tibetans search for, identify and install the next Dalai Lama baby boy through a typical process, which involves testing of all boy children born after the death of a Dalai Lama. A major factor which directs this search process are the personal indications and desires left behind by a Dalai Lama about the place, family and other elements of his own choice of his next birth.