US wants UN to take up Dalai Lama succession: envoy

The United States wants the United Nations to take up the Dalai Lama's succession in an intensifying bid to stop China from trying to handpick his successor, an envoy said after meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said he spoke at length about the succession issue with the 84-year-old Dalai Lama last week in the monk's home-in-exile of Dharamsala, India.

Brownback said he told the Dalai Lama that the United States would seek to build global support for the principle that the choice of the next spiritual chief "belongs to the Tibetan Buddhists and not the Chinese government."
"My estimation undoubtedly is that the (Chinese) communist party has thought a lot about this. So they've got a plan and I think we have to be equally aggressive with a plan."
Brownback said he found the Dalai Lama "quite jovial" and that the monk had told him, "'Look, I'm going to live another 15, 20 years; I'm going to outlast the Chinese government.'"
But he acknowledged Nepal's difficult situation and said: "I would hate to be very harsh on the Nepalese because they've been so good over so many years to help the Tibetans."