Great Regulars: In attacking the Dalai Lama's claim

that Tibetans should be the arbiters of his fate in the afterlife, Beijing is seeking to enforce a top-level 2007 directive on how the senior figures of Tibetan Buddhism must transmit their titles from lifetime to lifetime, according to Chinese commentators.

The Dalai Lama's statement in September asserting that he or other Tibetan leaders should be the ones to decide on his reincarnation may have been a last-ditch response to Beijing's hard line in religious affairs, according to retired Seton Hall University professor Yang Liyu, who recently discussed the matter with the exiled spiritual leader.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Party Reasserts Reincarnation 'Rules'

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