China institutes rebirth control

I often cringe at the word “Orwellian” when it is bandied about. However, China's latest move goes beyond anything Eric Blair described in 1984, for last Saturday, September 1, the Chinese government instituted a series of rules aimed at controlling Tibet – including reincarnation.

In case you missed last week's “odds and ends” news, the Chinese government has passed legislation banning the reincarnation of Tibetan monks without official sanction. As the Times of London reports, the newly enacted rules make it so that the living Buddha, the Dalai Lama, cannot reincarnate without government approval.

"It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas," the Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs said in a statement. A temple that wishes to house the living Buddha must be legally registered for “Tibetan Buddhism activities and capable of fostering and offering proper means of support for the living Buddha,” according to the state religious agency.

The move is as political and as it is absurd. China hopes to open up Lhasa as a tourist venue, with the newly completed railroad. Beyond disrupting Tibetan Buddhism, the legislation is an effort to promote Chinese nationalism, as well. When religion is the center of a culture, and a figure is central to a religion, the best way to control the religion, and by proxy, the culture, is to legislate control – and selection – of the central figure.

The Chinese government has already selected the official Panchen Lama, the Dalai Lama's number two, without the Dalai Lama's blessing. Unsurprisingly, the state Panchen Lama has told the Chinese state press of the “ample religious freedom” the Tibetan people enjoy.

"I've been to many places in the past decade and witnessed the ample freedom enjoyed by individuals and religious organizations alike,” he said to Xinhua News Agency in 2005. “Living Buddhas like myself are able to perform religious rituals under the wing of the Chinese Constitution and other laws," he said.

Ever since the People's Liberation Army crushed the Tibetan resistance in 1949-1950, China has had a difficult time quashing the restive Tibetan faith, a faith that is a fundamental part of Tibetan culture. Institutionalizing reincarnation is one way for Beijing to control the influence of the Dalai Lama, who was up to his exile the primary political figure in the region as well.

According to that administrative bureau, the government only steps into religious affairs of public and political interest. But when that religious affair is the selection of the most important public figure in a occupied territory, that affair is of incredible political worth.

The new regulation also precludes any Buddhist monk from reincarnating outside of China, according to India's Daily News and Analysis.

“These stringent new measures strike at the heart of Tibetan religious identity,” said Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, a special envoy of the Dalai Lama, to the Indian news service. “They will only create further resentment among the Tibetan people and cannot override the Party’s lack of legitimacy in the sphere of religion.”

The United States' press coverage of the issue is less than stellar, as it has appeared only in sections such as Emil Steiner's column for the Washington Post, OFF/beat.

For a paper with an extensive foreign desk, a little more thorough coverage of the issue would be nice, considering how China is a growing economic power, one that is inviting the world to its capitol a year from now. The Los Angeles Times hasn't followed the story, while the New York Times has it on their premium “TimesSelect” program.

The tension between the land of snow and its easterly neighbor has persisted from as far back as 821, when the first peace treaty between Tibet and China was signed. In 1913, Tibet declared a national independence. In the following years, the recently founded Chinese Republic refused to fully acknowledge the autonomy of the nation.

Tibet, as well as the rest of the East, experienced a tremendous shift in stature in October of 1949 when Chairman Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People's Republic of China. One year later, 80,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army marched into Tibet. Another year later, the Seventeen-point Agreement integrated Tibet into the larger country, with a promise of autonomy.

That autonomy has been the subject of a bloody history of protest and government control. In March 1959 an uprising was brutally smothered in Lhasa. At that point, the Dalai Lama fled to India. Since that point, further demonstrations have often been met further gunfire.

In the past month, during the Tibetan festival season, images and posters of the exiled Dalai Lama have been dealt with “swiftly,” according to the New York Times. Chinese officials and security forces have had an active role in the festivals. Any attempts by Chinese officials to rouse the crowd were met with a muted response, reported Howard W. French for the Times. Although there has not been gunfire, the government nonetheless has attempted to further control of the Tibetan minority.

Perhaps the best way to understand the fallout of the situation is to go straight to His Holiness, as per his well-maintained Web site, “If the present situation regarding Tibet remains the same, I will be born outside Tibet away from the control of the Chinese authorities,” he said. “Thus, if the Tibetan situation still remains unsolved, it is logical (that) I will be born in exile to continue my unfinished work.”