Amid China’s objection, what plays a major role in choosing the next Dalai Lama?

China on Wednesday rejected the Dalai Lama's succession plan, insisting that any future heir must receive its seal of approval, adding a new chapter to Tibetan Buddhism's decades-long struggle with the Chinese ruling Communist Party. The Tibetan spiritual leader on Wednesday said the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue and only the Gaden Phodrang Trust - founded by his office in 2015 - will have the authority to recognise the future reincarnation, ending speculation whether he will have a successor or not after his death. 

The statement comes four days before the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism turns 90. The statement echoes with his earlier statement made on September 24, 2011, in which he conveyed that if the decision regarding “the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should continue and there is a need for the Fifteenth Dalai Lama to be recognized, responsibility for doing so will primarily rest on the concerned officers of the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Trust”. 

What is Gaden Phodrang Trust? 

Gaden Phodrang are the residential quarters of the Dalai Lama that has been continuing in the lineage from the second Dalai Lama onward at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. However, the Dalai Lamas shifted from these quarters to the Potala Palace after the fifth Dalai Lama ordered for their building by a decree. The Dalai Lama’s stay at the Potala Palace in winter and Norbulingka, built by the seventh Dalai Lama about 100 years after Potala, in summer. However, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, broke this tradition after his escape from Lhasa to Dharamshala in India, which he made his “adopted home” in March 1959. The Gaden Phodrang Trust is one of three institutions associated with the Dalai Lama. 

His announcement ahead of his 90th birthday on Sunday is set to intensify tensions with Beijing. 

"The Dalai Lama's reincarnation must follow the principles of domestic recognition, the ‘Golden Urn’ process, and approval by the central government, in line with religious traditions and laws,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a media briefing while responding to the Dalai Lama's announcement. 

How is a Dalai Lama chosen? 

The choice of a successor to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhists, is a matter of major interest not only for millions of followers of his religion, but also for China, India, and the United States, for strategic reasons. Dalai Lama meaning is 'Ocean of Wisdom' with the full title meaning 'Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama.'

Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated after his death. The 14th Dalai Lama was born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming family in what is now Qinghai province in the far northwest of China. 

He was identified as the reincarnation meaning, coming back in the next birth, when he was just two years old by a search party sent by the Tibetan government. They made their decision on the basis of several signs, such as a vision revealed to a senior monk, the Dalai Lama's website says. The searchers were convinced when the toddler identified belongings of the 13th Dalai Lama with the phrase, “It's mine, it's mine”. 

In February 1940, Lhamo Thondup was officially installed as the spiritual leader of Tibetans in a ceremony at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, now the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.