China warns India over poet monk: ‘don’t even think about stealing our 6th Dalai Lama’

China has objected to India’s efforts to celebrate a 17th-century Dalai Lama well known for his love of poetry, seeing it as an attempt to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims in the region and its control over Tibetan Buddhism, according to experts.

India hosted an international symposium on the 6th Dalai Lama in Tawang, his birthplace, from December 3 to 6. Pema Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, inaugurated the event, which was attended by local officials and scholars of Tibetan and Buddhist studies from around the world.

Tawang is the core settlement at the eastern end of the disputed territory between China and India. It is governed by India as the border state of Arunachal Pradesh, while China claims it as Zangnan, or southern Tibet.

Tsangyang Gyatso was born in 1683 and formally became the 6th Dalai Lama in 1697. This living Buddha, celebrated for his poetic compositions, is regarded as the most legendary of all Tibetan spiritual leaders and loved by many readers in China.

In recent days, multiple social media accounts affiliated with China’s ethnic policy authorities have published articles condemning India’s actions.

On December 12, Dao Zhonghua, a social media account under the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, published an article by Xie Zhibin, an associate professor at Northwest University, titled “India, don’t even think about stealing our Tsangyang Gyatso.” Xie is vice-director of the South Asia research centre at the university in the northwestern city of Xian.