Published by World Tibet Network News - Thursday - December 21, 1995

Dr. John Powers, Senior Lecturer, The Australian National University

Canberra Times

20 December 1995 - From: John.Powers@anu.edu.au (John Powers)

China's leaders have an image problem. As members of the Communist Party,

they are officially committed to atheism and to Karl Marx's doctrine that

religion is the "opiate of the masses," a false superstition that will

eventually be eradicated in the communist society of the future.

On the other hand, they also want to convince the world that they promote

religious freedom. The tension between these two stances is nowhere more

evident than in Tibet, a remote plateau with a deeply religious populace,

many of whom feel that the Chinese government is working to eradicate their

ancient religious traditions. The conflict between the communist rulers of

Tibet and its Buddhist inhabitants has reached a particularly critical

phase in recent months, with the focal point being the search for the

reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most prominent religious

leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that great religious teachers choose to be reborn

in the world in order to help others attain enlightenment. Such

reincarnations are called "tulkus." The two most prominent are the Dalai

Lama and the Panchen Lama, who historically are closely connected. The

Dalai Lama currently lives in India, where he fled after China invaded

Tibet in 1959.

In the seventeenth century, the fifth Dalai Lama gave the title "Panchen

Lama" to his teacher, Losang Choekyi Gyeltsen, the abbot of Tashi Lhunpo

monastery, and declared that he would be reborn as a recognisable

child-successor. From that time until the present day, the Dalai Lamas have

traditionally recognised the Panchen Lamas, and the Panchen Lamas in turn

figure prominently in the search for the Dalai Lamas.

When the tenth Panchen Lama died in 1989, officials of the People's

Republic of China (PRC) ordered that a search committee be formed to

identify his successor. For several years, prominent monks searched for his

reincarnation. In October of 1994, a group of senior monastic officials

conducted religious ceremonies on Shugtri Ridge, above the sacred lake

Lhamo Latso, which is renowned for producing visions of the locations of

tulkus. After several days of waiting, they saw a rainbow that led them to

the house of Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the six year old son of semi-nomadic

parents. At this point, abbot of Tashi Lhunpo, the Panchen's monastery,

secretly sent the Dalai Lama the names of several leading candidates.

The Dalai Lama then performed a divination in which he rolled slips of

paper with the candidates' names into balls of dough, and then held each

ball in his hands while pronouncing the child's name. He reported that "the

dough ball [containing the name of Gendun Choekyi Nyima] emerged as if

jumping out on its own." He next consulted the Nechung Oracle (which

inhabits the body of a human host and delivers often cryptic prophecies),

who informed the Dalai Lama that he had correctly identified the

reincarnation.

In his official announcement on the recognition of the new Panchen Lama,

the Dalai Lama stated that his decision was "purely a religious matter,"

and he called on the PRC government to "extend its understanding,

cooperation, and assistance." It was a master stroke on the part of the

Dalai Lama, and it took Chinese officials completely by surprise. The PRC

government had apparently been waiting to make its own announcement in

September, the thirtieth anniversary of the formation of its puppet state

in Tibet (called the "Tibet Autonomous Region").

The PRC soon responded by launching a vigorous campaign of verbal attacks

on the Dalai Lama and his motivations. On 17 May, the PRC's Xinhua news

agency carried an interview with an official of the State Council's Bureau

of Religious Affairs denouncing the Dalai Lama's choice as "illegal and

invalid." Subsequent statements by high-ranking Chinese officials have

echoed this sentiment and accused the Dalai Lama of usurping the authority

of the Central Government of China, which they contend is the sole

legitimate arbiter in the selection of tulkus.

Fearing a public outcry over their attempt to expropriate the traditional

authority of the Dalai Lama, PRC leaders quickly moved to prevent opposition.

Gendun Choekyi Nyima, along with his family, disappeared shortly after the

public denunciations of the Dalai Lama's choice appeared in Chinese

newspapers, and they are believed to be under military guard in Beijing

while their eventual fate is being decided.

China's leaders have also launched a propaganda campaign which claims that

Chinese government officials have overseen the selection of tulkus for over

200 years, a claim that is historically baseless. While Chinese

representatives have often visited Tibet for enthronement ceremonies and

passed on the good wishes of emperors or other heads of state, there is no

historical evidence that a Chinese official has ever had any direct role in

the selection process, nor have any been more than observers.

The present situation is roughly comparable to the Australian government

sending a representative to the Vatican for the investiture of a Pope and

later claiming to have sole authority to choose his successor.

PRC sources claim that in 1793 the Chinese emperor Qianlong sent a golden

urn to Tibet, along with instructions that the Dalai Lama should be chosen

by a lottery system in which names of candidates would be placed in the

urn, and one child's name would be selected. Historical records show that

the emperor's urn was ignored, and the selection of the next Dalai Lama

proceeded in the traditional way.

Since that time, only two Panchen Lamas have been chosen by lottery, and

neither the last Panchen Lama nor the current Dalai Lama were selected by

this method. In no case has a Chinese official ever been involved.

Despite internal and external opposition, the PRC leadership quickly moved

to choose an alternate Panchen Lama. In early November, high-ranking

Buddhist leaders were ordered to travel to Beijing to participate in

selecting another Panchen Lama. When they arrived, they were placed under

heavy guard at the military-owned Jingxi Guesthouse. To underscore the

importance of the proceedings, five of the seven members of the ruling

Politburo attended, including Party Secretary Jiang Zemin.

After several days, the PRC leadership declared that another Panchen Lama

had been selected, a young boy named Gyeltsen Norbu, who is the son of

Communist Party officials. This violates China's own stated policies,

outlined in a directive several years ago, in which Tibetan cadres were

instructed not to allow their children to be selected as tulkus. Moreover,

in order to enter the Party, cadres must demonstrate a strong commitment to

atheism.

After the announcement was made, a rushed investiture was arranged. During

the ceremony, broadcast on Chinese television, the young Gyeltsen Norbu

looked distinctly nervous, a justifiable reaction under the circumstances.

Given the extraordinary importance attached to the ceremony by Chinese

leaders, he may have suspected that his life is about to become more

difficult than he ever could have imagined, as he becomes a pawn in the

conflict between the Chinese government and the Tibetan government in exile

for the hearts of the Tibetan people.

Several commentators have recently wondered aloud why China is so concerned

with this particular tulku selection process. The PRC government has

invested 6,000,000 yuan (A$1,000,000) in financing the search, and senior

government officials have taken a leading role in denouncing the Dalai Lama

and in asserting the Central Government's sole authority in selecting

reincarnations. The idea of atheists choosing a tulku when they do not

believe in the validity of reincarnation is of course ludicrous, and the

pressure exerted on religious leaders by senior PRC officials has

demonstrated the hollowness of Chinese claims that the government is

promoting religious freedom in Tibet.

The PRC has also been subjected to humiliating condemnations from other

governments around the world, including a unanimous resolution passed in

the US Senate and another in the European Parliament. At a time when China

is concerned with improving economic and political ties with other

countries, one may well wonder why it has chosen a course of action

guaranteed to diminish its international reputation.

The reasons lie in the long-term view taken by China's leaders. Since the

invasion in the 1950s, Tibet has been restive under Chinese occupation, and

it has periodically erupted in anti-Chinese demonstrations. The Dalai Lama

has travelled the world, successfully winning converts to his cause, much

to the chagrin of the PRC leadership. But the central government clearly

looks forward to his demise, and as he is now in his sixties he will be

nearing the end of his life as the new Panchen Lama reaches maturity.

If China is able to control him, the Panchen Lama's traditional role in

selecting the Dalai Lama could leave China with compliant tulkus in the two

top positions, which would help immeasurably in solidifying its control

over Tibet. Because of Tibet's vast natural resources and its strategic

importance as the high ground separating China from India, China's leaders

are determined to hold onto it at any cost.

Recent statements from Chinese authorities have also indicated that public

reaction to their selection may influence the future of Tibetan Buddhism.

In a thinly-veiled threat to Tibetans opposed to their decision, the New

China News Agency in December carried a statement that warned, "Any legal

religion must firstly demand that its believers be patriotic." The article

went on to state that religion should always be dedicated to the service of

the state and that a faith whose believers are unpatriotic or disloyal

should be banned.

With memories of past repression of religion under Chinese rule still fresh

in the minds of most Tibetans, such warnings sound an ominous note, which

was undoubtedly intended. The stakes are enormously high for the Tibetans,

as the exile government clearly realises: They have already lost their

country, and their homeland is being flooded by Han Chinese, who are

remaking the country in the image of modern China. Caught in the middle are

two six year old boys, who are probably wondering how they came to be pawns

in this struggle.