At the age of two he was formally recognised, according to Tibetan tra- dition, as the fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was just 16, the spiritual and pol- tical leader of Tibet, when in 1950 the communist Chinese army marched into Tibet, occupying the eastern part. For a number of years he undertook a series of diplomatic missions to China and India, to plead for the indepen- dence of Tibet. In 1959, however, he was forced into exile by the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since 1960 he has resided in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile.