The Sixth Reting Lama (C) is congratulated by Qi Xiaofei (L), representative of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, after the ordination at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa January 16. The Chinese government ordained the reincarnation of the Tibetan "living Buddha" in a move that could exacerbate already bitter relations between Beijing and the Tibetan government-in-exile. Supported by the Religious Affairs Bureau in Beijing, the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region approved selection of the two-year-old boy as the reincarnation of the Sixth Reting Lama, who died in February 1997, the official Xinhua news agency said. But many Tibetan Buddhists were likely to reject the boy as a fake unless the Dalai Lama, in exile in Dharamsala, India, accepts him as the legitimate reincarnation. The woman on right is unidentified.

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