DHARAMSHALA, India  – The elderly Dalai Lama assured his followers on Wednesday that upon his death he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and spelt out a succession process that sets up a renewed clash with China.

The eagerly awaited statement, made days before the frail Nobel peace laureate turns 90, puts to rest speculation, started by the Dalai Lama himself, that he may be the last of Tibet’s spiritual leaders, ending a line that stretches back centuries.

Speaking during a week of celebrations in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala to mark his birthday, the Dalai Lama said a non-profit institution he has set up will have the sole authority to identify his reincarnation, countering China’s insistence that it will choose his successor.

Beijing reiterated on Wednesday that it had to approve the reincarnation and that it had to be done in China through a centuries-old ritual.

Beijing views the Dalai Lama, who fled to India from Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, as a separatist. The Dalai Lama has said his successor will be born outside China and urged his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing. In previous years, he had also said it was possible that there might be no successor at all.

“I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Dalai Lama said in a video message, setting off claps and cheers from more than 100 monks in maroon robes who had gathered in a library in Dharamshala.

The event was also attended by journalists from around the world and long-time supporters including Hollywood star Richard Gere, who sat in the audience in a hall that had ornate paintings of the Buddha and photographs of the Dalai Lama on the walls.

He added that the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the non-profit organisation that he set up to maintain and support the tradition and institution of the Dalai Lama, has the sole authority to recognise his reincarnation in consultation with the heads of Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

“They should accordingly carry out the procedures of search and recognition in accordance with past tradition … no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” the Dalai Lama said.

Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child upon his death.

Born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming family in what is now Qinghai province, the 14th Dalai Lama was identified as such a reincarnation when he was just two years old by a search party on the basis of several signs, such as a vision revealed to a senior monk, the Dalai Lama’s website says.

He is now regarded as one of the world’s most influential religious figures, with a following extending well beyond Buddhism, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

‘Open to Visting Tibet’

The Dalai Lama was in good health and has not given any written instructions yet on the succession, said Samdhong Rinpoche, a senior official of the Gaden Phodrang Trust.

He told reporters in Dharamshala that the successor can be of any gender and that their nationality would not be restricted to Tibet.

Penpa Tsering, leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile in India, said the Dalai Lama would be open to visiting Tibet if his health permits and if there were no restrictions from China, which would mark his first visit to the country since 1959.

“It’s entirely dependent on China and the Chinese government,” he said, adding that Beijing had put a condition that if the Dalai Lama visits, he should stay back.

“His holiness’ response is ‘If I get to go to Tibet and China, I will go, but I will not live there, because there is no freedom there’. This is also connected with the reincarnation where his holiness says ‘I will be born in a free world'”, Tsering said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the country’s leaders had the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, as a legacy from imperial times, and that China practices a policy of freedom of religious belief.

A selection ritual, in which the names of possible reincarnations are drawn from a golden urn, dates to 1793, during the Qing dynasty.

“The child reincarnation of a major Living Buddha such as the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama needs to be identified through lot-drawing from a golden urn and approval by the central government,” Mao said at a regular news conference.

Tsering, the leader of the government-in-exile, said the U.S. had lifted some restrictions on funds for Tibetans in exile and that the Tibetan government was also looking for alternate sources of funding.

The United States, which faces rising competition from China for global dominance, has repeatedly said it is committed to advancing the human rights of Tibetans. U.S. lawmakers have previously said they would not allow China to influence the choice of the Dalai Lama’s successor.

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(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Shivam Patel; Additional reporting by Tanvi Mehta in New Delhi and Ryan Woo, Ethan Wang in Beijing; Editing by Tom Hogue and Raju Gopalakrishnan)