China 'furious' over Dalai Lama visit

Updated 19.14 Tue Oct 16 2007

Keywords: George W Bush, Tibet, China, Dalai Lama

China is furious over a US visit by the Dalai Lama where he will be awarded with a Congressional honour.

The Dalai Lama, who China views as a separatist and a traitor, has lived in exile in India since staging a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

On Wednesday, he will receive the US Congressional Gold Medal after a White House event hosted by President George W Bush

President George W Bush held a meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader on the eve of the ceremony when the Dalai Lama will recieve the US Congressional Gold Medal.

The Bush administration took pains to keep the encounter with the president low-key in an apparent bid to placate China.

Tibet's Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, said: "We are furious. If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world."

In protest at the plan to honour the Dalai Lama, China this week pulled out of a meeting at which world powers were to discuss Iran.

It also cancelled an annual human rights dialogue with Germany to show its displeasure over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's September meeting with the man Tibetan Buddhists consider their spiritual leader.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stated China had expressed its "resolute opposition" to the award, saying: "China has solemnly demanded the United States cancel the above-mentioned and extremely wrongful arrangement."

And Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said if the decision is not reversed by the US, it would have an "extremely serious impact" on bilateral relations.

The Dalai Lama says he supports a "middle way" policy that advocates autonomy for Tibet within China.

In recent months, at least two Communist Party members in Tibet have been expelled for alleged disloyalty to China, according to an internal Party memo.

Earlier this year, an ethnic Tibetan in the western province of Sichuan was reportedly charged with subversion for addressing a crowd on the need for greater religious freedom and for the Dalai Lama to be allowed to return.

And Amnesty International says several 15-year-old Tibetan boys are still being detained after graffiti calling for his return was found scribbled on walls in the northwestern province of Gansu.