The Dalai Lama’s successor will be born outside China, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says in a new book, raising the stakes in a dispute with Beijing over control of the Himalayan region he fled more than six decades ago.

The Tibetan Buddhist leader said the choice of a successor should be made according to traditional practices and that lamas and monks would conduct the search, setting up a clash with Beijing’s communist rulers.

In his latest book, A Voice for the Voiceless, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, unveiled his political “plan” for Tibet’s future. The book indirectly reopened the thorny issue of his succession in the context of ongoing tensions with the Beijing regime.