Can They Do That?

Gees! They buy a piece of IBM, were trying to buy Maytag and Unocal, are building up their military/arsenal and now China says it will pick the next Dali Lama?

In its latest and most serious ever attempt to interfere in Tibet's traditional system of recognising lamas, China has gone to the extent of saying that Beijing will choose the next Dalai Lama. Tibet Autonomous Region chairman Qiangba Puncog was quoted by Asianews/SCMP as saying that 'if the spiritual leader, who turned 70 on July 6, dies in exile, Beijing would follow Tibetan Buddhist precedent to choose his reincarnation.'

“The choice has never been arranged by the Chinese Communist Party, but by the traditional rules of Tibetan Buddhism since the Qing dynasty (i.e. since 1644),” he said at a press conference. But a precedent was set in 1995 when Beijing rejected the Dalai Lama’s choice of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama and installed instead Gyaltsen Norbu, added puncog, a Tibetan by birth.

The Tibetan government based in Dharamshala, however, has not yet reacted to Puncog's statement. China justified the move by invoking an 18th century practice that involves picking a name out of three inserted in a golden urn preserved in the Yunghegong (Lama Temple) in Beijing, the Asianews/SCMP reported.

Methinks China is getting out of control. The next thing we know, they'll be in the axis of evil too!