the 10th panchen lama choekyi gyaltsen was born gonpo tseten on 19 february 1938 in today's xunhua salar autonomous county of qinghai, to gonpo tseten and sonam drolma. when the ninth panchen lama died in 1937, two simultaneous searches for the tenth panchen lama produced two competing candidates, with the government in lhasa (who had selected a boy from xikang) and the ninth panchen lama's officials (who picked tseten) in conflict. the republic of china government, then embroiled in the chinese civil war, declared its support for tseten on 3 june 1949. guan jiyu, the head of the mongolian and tibetan affairs commission, joined kuomintang governor of qinghai ma bufang in presiding over tseten's enthronement on 11 june as choekyi gyaltsen at kumbum monastery. the dalai lama's government in lhasa still refused to recognize gyaltsen.