Top US Diplomat said that China has no theological basis to pick the next Dalai Lama, asserting that the Tibetan Buddhists have successfully picked their spiritual leader for hundreds of years. Samuel D Brownback said that the US supports the facts that religious communities have the right to pick their own leadership.

“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 said.

“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,” Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D Brownback told reporters on Tuesday during a conference call, recalling his visit to India in October.

“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,” he said in response to a question.

Samuel D Brownback further called on China to stop their war on faith, which will not be successful anyway, against the Uyghurs, against the Tibetan Buddhists, against the Christian house church, against the Catholic Church, against Falun Gong.