Why China and India are watching the Dalai Lama closely

Not so long ago, the Dalai Lama’s travel schedule was packed. In the six decades after Tibet’s spiritual leader fled to India in 1959, he visited dozens of countries, meeting royalty, religious leaders and four sitting American presidents along the way. Recently, he has slowed down. One reason is his age (he is 88). Covid-19 complicated travel too, as did the penalties exacted on his hosts by China, which considers him a separatist. But while he has not been abroad since 2018, he has committed to keep travelling within India.

So there was understandable concern among exiled Tibetans and their sympathisers in October when the Dalai Lama cancelled four trips in India. They included one to the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh that was particularly sensitive. China claims the state as its territory and briefly occupied much of it during a month-long war with India in 1962. The dispute over it and other border areas has reignited since the Dalai Lama last visited Arunachal, to China’s fury, in 2017.