The keys to understanding the very political succession of the Dalai Lama

● The heir to a Buddhist theocracy

Located in the north of the Himalayas, Tibet (a mountainous territory of 1,200,000 km2) was for a long time a Buddhist and feudal theocracy, ruled by a Dalai Lama, a term meaning "ocean of wisdom" . Tenzin Gyatso would be the 14th reincarnation. He was installed at the Potala Palace in Lhasa on February 22, 1940. He was not 5 years old. Contrary to popular belief, Tibet was always more or less vassal of the Middle Kingdom. This has been the case since the Yuan dynasty. The only period of relative independence: between 1912 and 1951, due to the political convulsions which then rocked China. The Communists' victory in 1949 will put an end to this parenthesis. In 1950, Mao Zedong launched his troops to attack what he considered a Chinese province and a medieval survival. That same year, the Dalai Lama was officially enthroned spiritual and temporal chief. Aged 15, he was the one who signed (under the constraint of the Maoist emissaries), in 1951, the "17-point agreement on

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