; Whereas Buddhists in Tibet, the United States, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Russia, and other countries where followers of Tibetan Buddhism reside look to the Dalai Lama for religious leadership and spiritual guidance; Whereas, in its 2017 annual report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that [t]he Chinese government claims the power to select the next Dalai Lama with the help of a law that grants the government authority over reincarnations, which purports to require all Tibetan Buddhist leaders to obtain the approval of the Government of the People's Republic of China in order to reincarnate; Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China has interfered in the identification and installation of reincarnated leaders of Tibetan Buddhism, as part of its efforts to maintain control over Tibet, including in 1995 arbitrarily detaining the recently identified 11th Panchen Lama, then a six-year-old boy, and purporting to install China’s own candidate as Panchen Lama; Whereas, in 2011, the 14th Dalai Lama declared that the responsibility for identifying a future 15th Dalai Lama will rest with officials of the Dalai Lama’s private office and that apart from the reincarnation recognized through such legitimate methods, no recognition or acceptance should be given to a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including those in the People’s Republic of China ; Whereas, in 1981, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, which provides that freedom of religion shall include the freedom to train, appoint, elect or designate by succession appropriate leaders called for by the requirements and standards of any religion or belief ; Whereas Congress has long held that the right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States, and that freedom of religious belief and practice is a universal human right and fundamental freedom