The battle for the next Dalai Lama

0:00 [Sam] This is the Dalai Lama.

0:02 He's the spiritual leader for more than 7 million Tibetan Buddhists worldwide.

0:06 He's also an activist, humanitarian, and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

0:11 (crowd applauding) The Dalai Lama is also 90 years old,

0:15 and he's having a difficult time planning for the next Dalai Lama.

0:19 Since 1391, there have only been 14 Dalai Lamas.

0:23 It's believed that when they die,

0:25 they are reborn as their successor, a process called reincarnation.

0:30 The 15th Dalai Lama should be no different,

0:32 except he'll face a dilemma that no other Dalai Lama has before.

0:37 A rival Dalai Lama.

0:39 (bright music) China has occupied Tibet for more than seven decades.

0:43 It oppresses Tibetan culture and erases nearly

0:45 all the signs that Tibet was once independent, except for the most famous one.

0:51 Now China sees the Dalai Lama's impending death

0:53 as its best chance to finish the job.

0:56 What they see in the Dalai Lama institution,

0:58 the reincarnation system, is actually a launch pad for power.

1:03 They want their own puppet.

1:05 [Sam] So, how does China plan to install its own Dalai Lama?

1:09 What does it mean for Tibet?

1:11 And could it all backfire?

1:13 (upbeat music) (keypads clicking)- The reincarnation system

1:26 is a really unique form of succession.

1:30 [Sam] Tenzin Dorjee is a researcher at the Tibetan

1:33 Action Institute and a teacher at Columbia University.

1:36 Indians are the ones who developed the idea of rebirth,

1:38 the idea that every person has this kind of soul that is reborn after you die.

1:44 The Tibetans really took this idea and basically turned it into a practice.

1:49 [Sam] Tibetan Buddhists believe that Dalai

1:50 Lamas can control their own consciousness.

1:52 In 1933, the 13th died and directed his into a new person.

1:57 Then a group of senior Lamas went looking for him.

2:01 They found Lhamo Thondup in rural Tibet.

2:03 He was only two years old, but passed the tests they gave him.

2:07 They reported that he recognized the lead deputy

2:09 and items that belonged to the recently passed Dalai Lama.

2:14 In 1939, they recognized him as the 14th Dalai Lama.

2:18 They whisked him to this monastery in Lhasa, drilled him in Buddhist philosophy,

2:23 and prepared him to be the leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

2:26 But that was just half the job.

2:29 In 1950, the Dalai Lama assumed political leadership of Tibet the country.

2:33 A historically tricky job.

2:36 Tibet is located at the center of Asia between

2:39 three huge powers who see it as a buffer state.

2:42 Buffer states don't last for very long because there are power vacuum and all

2:47 these powers nearby in the neighboring region worry

2:50 about somebody else taking over that buffer state.

2:54 [Sam] In the 1700s, the Chinese Qing Dynasty invaded Tibet.

2:57 In the 1900s, the British Indian Empire invaded,

3:00 then handed Tibet over to the Qing Dynasty again.

3:03 When the Dalai Lama took power,

3:05 Tibet was enjoying a rare moment of independence.

3:08 But a year after communists took over China, they took over Tibet.

3:13 Initially, they let the Dalai Lama stay.

3:15 [Reporter] Communist China had promised to respect Tibet's

3:18 religious institutions and its right to local self-rule.

3:22 [Sam] But Tibetans grew fed up with China's brutal policies.

3:25 In 1959, they revolted.

3:27 China cracked down and threatened the Dalai Lama's life.

3:31 [Reporter] Against the communists' reign of terror, Tibetans took up arms.

3:35 It was a cry for liberty.

3:38 [Sam] In March 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet,

3:40 crossed the Himalayas, and entered India.

3:43 There, he set up a Tibetan government in exile.

3:47 He would never return to Tibet.

3:50 China crushed the rebellion there, then began to remake the country.

3:54 It caused so much destruction to the language,

3:57 religion, the monasteries, institutions.

4:00 They want to achieve cultural and civilizational

4:02 domination over Tibet by turning Tibetans into Chinese.

4:08 [Sam] But while China tightened its grip on Tibet,

4:10 the Dalai Lama built a movement to save it.

4:12 (upbeat music) He traveled the world on behalf of the Tibetan cause.

4:17 Thousands came out to hear him speak.

4:19 (Dalai Lama speaking foreign language)- [Reporter] He speaks

4:23 of the recent misfortune of the Tibetan people,

4:25 who are enduring great hardships.

4:28 [Sam] He won the support of world leaders,

4:30 and even recruited celebrities to the cause.

4:33 One thing I learned, that is the compassion, a sense of caring.

4:38 Your neighbor's interest is your interest.

4:44 [Sam] Historically, there are tensions between

4:45 the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as non-Buddhist Tibetans.

4:48 But the Dalai Lama united them under his leadership.

4:53 He kept the Tibetan identity alive, and it infuriated China.

4:58 They have called him all sorts of names.

5:00 He's a wolf in monk's clothing.

5:03 The Dalai Lama is basically a separatist.

5:06 [Sam] But the Dalai Lama is not a separatist.

5:08 He actually advocates for Tibet to remain within China,

5:11 just with some autonomy, a compromise he calls the Middle Way.

5:15 Self-rule, autonomy.

5:16 I do not consider these are most important issues.

5:20 Most important issue is preservation of Tibetan Buddhist culture.

5:27 Many Tibetans don't agree with that, but because it's coming from him,

5:31 people are willing to accept the deal that he may be able to accomplish.

5:37 [Sam] Above all else,

5:37 the Dalai Lama opposes the use of violence, especially by Tibetans.

5:42 Through non-violence, through human understanding,

5:45 although it may take more time, that I consider genuine achievement.

5:52 He's trying to be so reasonable,

5:53 but he hasn't really found the type of audience in the Chinese government.

5:59 [Sam] While China rejects the Middle Way,

6:00 it understands that this Dalai Lama is a uniquely powerful figure.

6:04 So, it's planning to make sure the next one isn't.

6:08 If they can control the Dalai Lama institution,

6:11 they can use that to achieve the final

6:13 phase of invasion through civilization and culture.

6:18 [Sam] China already figured out exactly how to do it 30 years ago.

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7:32 Now I'll take you back to the episode.

7:37 [Sam] In 1989, the second highest-ranking leader in Tibetan Buddhism died.

7:41 His position is called the Panchen Lama, which is also believed to reincarnate.

7:46 Senior lamas began looking for his successor initially with China's blessing.

7:51 In 1995, they identified a five-year-old boy.

7:53 But a few days later, he vanished.

7:56 The Chinese government basically abducted that boy,

7:58 kidnapped his whole family and disappeared him.

8:01 Nobody knows where this family is.

8:04 Nobody has seen them.

8:06 [Sam] China presented a different boy,

8:08 whose name it claimed was drawn out of a golden urn.

8:11 It's a succession ritual that Tibetan

8:13 Buddhists briefly used under the Qing dynasty,

8:15 for example, to select the 11th Dalai Lama.

8:18 China revived it and claimed that it made him the Panchen Lama.

8:22 30 years later, he reliably toes the Chinese Communist Party line.

8:27 Recently, he vowed to make Tibetan Buddhism more

8:30 Chinese in a meeting with China's leader, Xi Jinping.

8:33 Most Tibetans don't recognize China's Panchen Lama, only the kidnapped one.

8:38 Many outside of Tibet do it openly.

8:40 Those inside Tibet do it privately.

8:44 But with him, China proved that even

8:46 an illegitimate lama can help achieve its goal.

8:49 They were not able to build legitimacy of their own,

8:52 but they were able to destroy Tibetan power, Tibetan leadership.

8:59 [Sam] China plans to run the same playbook on the Dalai Lama's successor.

9:02 It says his name must come from the golden urn

9:05 and that any candidate named by a foreign government is illegitimate,

9:09 something the current Dalai Lama has spent years rejecting.

9:12 My next life, ultimately, I will decide, no one else.

9:19 [Sam] But China's plan is an existential threat for the Dalai Lama's movement.

9:23 And so, he's considered changing his own succession plan, sometimes drastically.

9:29 In 2011, the Dalai Lama wrote that he would

9:31 re-evaluate whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue.

9:35 The prospect of no Dalai Lama

9:37 caused shock among Tibetan Buddhists and, interestingly,

9:40 anger from the Chinese government.

9:43 The Chinese government went nuts and they said, no, you must reincarnate.

9:48 As long as the Dalai Lama institution is there,

9:50 the Chinese government at least has something that they

9:54 can see and identify and try to control.

10:00 [Sam] In 2024, the Dalai Lama confirmed he would reincarnate

10:02 as a new person and be identified and named by senior leaders.

10:07 But he's also said that he may reincarnate as a boy

10:09 or a girl and one born in a free country.

10:14 There are around 150,000 Tibetans living in 40 countries.

10:17 Most are in India.

10:19 But while these changes give more flexibility for naming a successor,

10:22 they won't stop China from using the golden urn to name its own Dalai Lama.

10:27 So most likely there will be two people claiming to be the 15th Dalai Lama.

10:32 And while only this one will enjoy the recognition of most Tibetans,

10:35 they'll face two unprecedented challenges.

10:38 One, dealing with a Chinese-named Dalai Lama.

10:41 And two, holding together a worldwide movement

10:44 that has only ever known one uniquely talented leader.

10:47 We all pray and hope that the 15th Dalai Lama, he or she or they,

10:52 would be very, very successful both

10:54 at the national level and at the global level.

10:56 But it will be very difficult to see this type of total wholehearted devotion.

11:05 [Sam] That's what China's hoping for.

11:07 But could a Uyghur Dalai Lama backfire?

11:11 Recently, China's domination of other regions makes most of the headlines.

11:15 Its campaign to eliminate the Uyghur minority in western China.

11:18 (people singing) Its undermining of autonomy in Hong Kong.

11:25 [Reporter 1] Media mogul Jimmy Lai is convicted in Hong Kong

11:28 in a case that's become a symbol of Beijing's crackdown on dissent.

11:33 [Sam] Its aggression in the South China Sea.

11:35 [Reporter 2] And Beijing has been issuing warnings to other

11:37 ships and planes to stay away from these man-made islands.

11:41 [Sam] And of course, its threats to invade Taiwan.

11:43 [Reporter 3] China is sticking to its ambitions

11:44 to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

11:48 [Sam] But it doesn't mean the dispute over Tibet is over.

11:52 In 1987, protests spiraled into riots.

11:55 And in 2008, Tibetans rioted and vandalized Chinese businesses.

11:59 Both times, the Dalai Lama condemned the violence and helped end it.

12:04 If you utilize the violent method, then I totally against it.

12:08 If violent thing, then my option, I resign.

12:13 [Sam] China may not like him,

12:15 but this Dalai Lama controls the most radical elements of his movement.

12:19 If the next one can't,

12:20 there could be another uprising in Tibet with no one to help stop it.

12:25 The Dalai Lama has always been an earnest

12:28 and genuine negotiator who wants to compromise,

12:31 who's willing to compromise, right?

12:33 And now the Chinese government is about to lose their person.

12:37 And I think the Chinese government will come to appreciate that too late.

12:42 [Sam] China thinks that hijacking the next Dalai

12:44 Lama will put to rest Tibetans' fight for independence.

12:47 But it may just reawaken it.

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0:00 That's our last video for the year.

13:27 This year we'll be back in January.

13:29 I just want to thank everyone who is here, who subscribed, and who watched.

13:35 I want to give a special thanks to my team as well.

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13:47 We'll be back in 2026 with a lot more videos.

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13:54 And we'll see you then.