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China warns Obama not to meet Dalai Lama

By Marianne Barriaux

The Dalai Lama greets supporters before the Capitol dome during festivities honouring him on 17 October 2007 in Washington, DC. China said any meeting between the Dalai Lama and US President Barack Obama would “seriously undermine” Sino-US ties, after negotiations on the future of Tibet failed to make progress.File photo/AFP/Getty Images/Mandel Ngan/US

China said Tuesday any meeting between the Dalai Lama and US President Barack Obama would “seriously undermine” Sino-US ties, after negotiations on the future of Tibet failed to make progress.

Chinese officials and representatives of the Himalayan region’s spiritual leader held their first round of talks in over a year, which concluded at the weekend. The envoys returned to their exile base in India on Monday.

The exiled Buddhist monk, whom China accuses of seeking independence for his homeland, is due in the United States this month for a visit that includes a stop in Washington, but a meeting with Obama has not been announced.

Such a meeting would “seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-US relations,” Zhu Weiqun, executive vice minister of the Communist Party body that handles contact with the Dalai Lama, told a news conference.

“If the US leader chooses to meet with the Dalai Lama at this time, it will certainly threaten trust and cooperation between China and the United States,” Zhu said.

The warning added to mounting tensions between Washington and Beijing, with relations already badly strained over US arms sales to Taiwan, Google’s threat to leave China, and a host of trade and currency disputes. Related article: China press furious at US ‘arrogance’ on Taiwan.

Obama was roundly criticised at home for avoiding a meeting with the Dalai Lama ahead of the US leader’s maiden trip to China in November.

A spokesman for Tibet’s government-in-exile dismissed the Chinese warning, saying there was “nothing wrong” with a meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama.

“From our perspective, we feel the role of the United States is to facilitate a just and honest dialogue between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and the government of China,” said the spokesman, Thubten Samphel. Related article: Tibet exiles reject China warning to US.

Illustrating the divide over Tibet, Zhu blasted Dalai Lama as a “separatist” and “troublemaker” bent on inciting world hatred of China over its control of his mountainous homeland.

But the Dalai Lama’s envoys rejected the claim in a statement released later on Tuesday, saying they had urged the Chinese government during the talks to stop labelling the exiled spiritual leader as a pro-independence activist.

“We called upon the Chinese side to stop these baseless accusations against His Holiness and labelling him a separatist,” the statement said.

The Dalai Lama says he seeks only greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule. He has warned that Tibetan culture is in danger of being extinguished.

Zhu indicated the secretive talks between China and the Dalai Lama’s envoys — the ninth round since the dialogue began in 2002 — made no progress.

“As in previous rounds of negotiations, the positions of the two sides are sharply divided,” he said.

Zhu said the Tibetan side stuck to a memorandum it submitted during the last round in November 2008 that insisted their autonomy demands were in line with China’s constitution, but slammed the document as an “independence” ploy.

He said the talks could not move forward if the Dalai Lama “continues to devote himself to anti-China propaganda and sabotage on the international stage.”

The Tibetan envoys, who flew to China on 25 January, held meetings with Chinese officials first in the central province of Hunan and then in Beijing at the weekend, the Dalai Lama’s senior secretary Chhime Chhoekyapa told AFP.

The Dalai Lama, 75, fled his homeland after a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule. That came nine years after Chinese troops were sent to take control of the region.

Since the 2008 round of talks, China has maintained a tough crackdown in Tibet launched following a wave of anti-Chinese unrest that erupted in March of that year and which Beijing blamed on the Dalai Lama.

Copyright © 2010 AFP

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