DHARAMSALA, 4 June: China has strongly opposed recent remarks made by Tibetan parliamentarians in Japanese media, for asserting that the next Dalai Lama would reincarnate in the “free world” and sought to have other countries exert pressure on China at the 9th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet (WPCT).

In a report published by China’s state-run media Global Times on Tuesday, an unnamed spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in Japan condemned the claim as a “deliberate distortion” and “misrepresentation” of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and reasserted that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must follow “Chinese laws and historical religious conventions”. 

“The claim that the next reincarnation will appear in the ‘free world’ is a deliberate distortion and misrepresentation” of Tibetan Buddhism. “The reincarnation of living Buddhas, including the Dalai Lama, must comply with Chinese laws and regulations, as well as established religious rituals and historical conventions”, the spokesperson has said.

The Chinese spokesperson’s remarks came as the 9th World WPCT, organised by the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile in collaboration with the Japan Parliamentary Support Group for Tibet, opened in Tokyo, Japan, on the same day.

In the same report by the Global Times, the spokesperson has explicitly reinforced China’s stance on the Tibetan government in exile as a “separatist political organisation that violates China’s constitution and laws”.