Concerned about possible interference by China in a future selection process, the Dalai Lama has suggested that he may break with tradition and appoint his own successor.

The first round of revelations came during His Holiness’s visit to Japan last week. The Dalai Lama told reporters that he is considering appointing a successor within his lifetime and most likely a member of the exiled Tibetan community.

In the past, following the death of a Dalai Lama, senior Tibetan Buddhist officials have identified a successor using a variety of traditional divination techniques. The present Dalai Lama was identified in such a manner at the age of two, living in a rural village in Amdo (the northern of the three provinces that comprised historic Tibet).

But the Dalai Lama said last week that he fears China’s interference in this process and is considering whether his successor should be picked by him, or elected by high-ranking Buddhist monks.

“If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I’m alive.”

Despite vehement and unrelenting efforts by China to undermine support for him, the vast majority of Tibetans both in exile and inside the Tibet Autonomous Region remain loyal to the Dalai Lama.

Tibetans are understandably concerned over what will happen when the 72-year-old 14th Dalai Lama dies and fear that China will attempt to further cement its control over Tibet by appointing their own Dalai Lama, one more amenable to China’s policies

When in 1995 the Dalai Lama appointed the 11th Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, China kidnapped the boy, then six years old, and selected a replacement loyal to Chinese rule. Despite persistent pleas from Tibetans and the international community, twelve years on Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, has still not been seen.

In later comments last week the Dalai Lama introduced the idea of holding a referendum among all Tibetans, inside and outside of Tibet, before he dies, to decide whether a new system of leadership would better serve the struggle for meaningful autonomy.

As Tibet experts including Kate Saunders (International Campaign for Tibet) and Robert Barnett (Director of Tibetan Studies at Columbia University) noted, these suggestions and the logic behind them represent the forward thinking, pragmatic approach now characteristic of the Dalai Lama and his envoys.

For Barnett, these comments were a ‘thinly-veiled warning’ that the Dalai Lama is about to make broader appeals to Tibetan Buddhists living in India, Mongolia and China, a warning that will be of great concern to Chinese authorities. China can repress and stifle dissent inside Tibet while it slowly chips away at the fabric of traditional Tibetan society through re-education, forced resettlement and population transfer. But they are powerless to halt the growing international calls from exiled Tibetans and their supporters for a resolution to the Tibet situation.