Bai Fan, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate researcher at the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
On February 1, the Grammy Awards ceremony turned into a political farce when the 14th Dalai Lama won the award for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording. The Dalai Lama posted a message on social media expressing his gratitude to the Grammys, claiming the award was “a recognition of our shared universal responsibility.”
On one hand, the Grammys manipulated ideology through art awards; on the other hand, the Dalai Lama, a politician in exile in the West to split China, engages in a hypocritical interactive performance under the guise of an art stage. The Grammys have demonstrated their depravity, willing to tarnish art and become a political tool for international anti-China forces to manipulate anti-China issues; the Dalai Lama, even in his old age, has shown that he remains a political rogue, never an enlightened Buddhist monk.
Buddhism is a religion that advocates benefiting the world, encouraging virtue, and urging compassion, helping others, performing good deeds, and guiding people towards enlightenment. Yet as a prominent figure in Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama has persistently pursued political separatism. He denies the historical fact that Xizang has been part of China, fabricates plots for “Xizang’s independence” in a bid to restore his former position as a theocratic ruler in Xizang – a reign filled with enslavement and evil.
For years, the Dalai Lama has acted more like a socialite among American and Western political and business elites. Recently, India’s Financial Express reported that the name of the Dalai Lama appeared 169 times in documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Even earlier, the online magazine CounterPunch published an article titled “Why Was The Dalai Lama At Jeffrey Epstein’s House?” on August 29, 2025, mentioning that a journalist named Michael Wolff met the Dalai Lama at Epstein’s residence. The article also revealed that the Dalai Lama attended an event of the cult NXIVM in 2009 and delivered a speech in exchange for a $1 million payment.
These actions exposed the Dalai Lama’s betrayal of the enlightenment that a Buddhist follower ought to uphold. He has exploited his religious identity. To maintain his connections with Western political and business circles, he has been forced to fabricate political lies such as “no human rights in Xizang” to mask his rogue politician nature.
The Grammys’ moral decline has also shocked the Chinese people. Initially, as one of the most important artistic awards in the United States and worldwide, the Grammy Awards aim to honor outstanding music artists of the past year and have enjoyed high recognition in China. However, in recent years, voices have emerged criticizing the Grammys for behind-the-scenes manipulations, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and award “trading.”
China’s rise has unsettled Western hegemony. Finding themselves unable to coerce China into submission through political, economic, or violent means, Western forces have been plotting to launch futile public opinion attacks on China by leveraging their communication advantages. For years, the Western world has often taken advantage of occasions such as music award ceremonies, film festivals, and art festivals to insinuate that China’s governance of Xinjiang and Xizang constitutes “human rights violations” and “cultural assimilation” in an attempt to exert pressure on China. The Grammys’ award to the 14th Dalai Lama is the latest manifestation of such despicable Western theatrics, which betrayed the original aspiration of art and sullied a fine artistic stage by turning it into a political showground – this is lamentable!
Enjoying a stable social environment, economic and cultural prosperity, and a consolidated border, the people of Xizang, China, now lead better lives. But the Grammys have abused a platform for artists, engaged in political manipulation under the cloak of “art,” and peddled their ideological agenda, willingly acting as a political tool for Western anti-China forces. None of this can shake China’s effective governance of Xizang.
