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Chinese leaders should retire: Dalai Lama

AP

The Dalai Lama gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in Beverly Hills, California, on 20 February 2010.AP/Reed Saxon/US

The Dalai Lama has a suggestion for improving China’s push for global power: communist party leaders should “retire with grace” and allow democracy to take over.

Speaking a day after meeting with President Barack Obama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists said Friday that China’s ruling communist party lacks popular support and is more about authoritarian capitalism than true socialism.

He says China’s communist leaders value money more than equal rights.

His comments came as China said the Dalai Lama’s meeting Thursday with Obama “seriously harms US-China relations.”

China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking to remove Tibet from Chinese rule and objects strongly to all his contact with foreign leaders.

Copyright © 2010 AP

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