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China protests meeting between Dalai Lama, Polish president

AFP

China expressed objections Thursday after Poland’s president met the Dalai Lama, warning that bilateral relations were at risk of being harmed amid a similar row with France.

“We have raised solemn representations with the Polish side and expressed our strong dissatisfaction,” foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said of the Dalai Lama’s meeting on Wednesday with Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

“We urged the Polish side to do nothing to harm or undermine China-Polish relations or to create obstacles for the relationship and not to harm China’s core interests.”

China had issued even sterner warnings to France before and after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, current holder of the E.U. presidency, met the Tibetan spiritual leader in Gdansk, northern Poland, on Saturday.

Beijing said that meeting had seriously harmed China’s ties with France and Europe.

The Dalai Lama had been invited to Gdansk by Lech Walesa to mark 25 years since the Polish anti-Communist icon received the Nobel Peace Prize as leader of Poland’s freedom-fighting Solidarity trade union.

China argues that the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, wants full independence for Tibet, a claim which he has called “totally baseless.”

He has lived in exile in India since fleeing his homeland after a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule. China has ruled Tibet since 1951, after sending troops into the Himalayan region the previous year.

Copyright © 2008 Agence France-Presse

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