China has no right to pick next Dalai Lama, asserts top US Diplomat

Asserting that the Tibetan Buddhists did a good job for centuries in choosing their leader, a top United States Diplomat said that China does not have the right to pick the next Dalai Lama.

"They have no right to do that. They have no theological basis to do that. The Tibetan Buddhists have successfully picked their leader for hundreds of years, if not longer, and they have the right to do that now," said Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D Brownback.

Brownback mentioned how the US protects and upholds the rights of religious communities to practice their faith and select their leaders.

"That certainly includes the next Dalai Lama. So we've pushed back against that. We're going to continue to push back against that. We think that's completely wrong of the Chinese Communist Party to assert that they have that right," he added.

He told the reporters about his contact with the Tibetan community in India. "I travelled to Dharamshala, India to speak to the Tibetan community that were assembled there in exile and to tell them that the US is opposed to China picking the next Dalai Lama," he said.

Brownback, who heads the Office of International Religious Freedom in the US Department of State, also addressed the persecution of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang province.

"The answer to terrorism isn't locking up everybody. The answer to terrorism is religious freedom, allowing people to freely practise their faith, and they won't fight you as much. If the Chinese weren't at war with faith, they would have a more open society, but they'd also have a more satisfying citizenry that seeks to practice their faith and be left alone and left in peace," he said about the issue.

"They are persecuting all faiths. And the big one that we announced today was this effort to really push back on the use of technology to create these virtual police states to persecute religious adherence. This is something they've done in Tibet, they are doing in Xinjiang, and rolling out in different places in their country. We want to stop this from spreading to other countries around the world or spreading more to other countries around the world," he elaborated on his stance towards this kind of persecution.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled to India with the help of CIA's Special Activities Division after China cracked down on the Tibetan uprising. He now heads the Tibetan government-in-exile from Dharamshala in India. As many as 1,60,000 Tibetans currently reside in India.