China fumes at Dalai Lama meeting Prez

Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 16

China today fumed at Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhawan during a children’s summit on Saturday and said that bilateral ties could be damaged if India continued to ignore China’s core interests.

India, on its part, maintained the standard line and said that ‘His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a respected and revered spiritual leader. It was a non political event organized by Nobel laureates dedicated to the welfare of children’.

Meanwhile, speaking exclusively to The Tribune on this issue, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister, Tibetan Government in Exile, said, “India is a sovereign country and the head of the state is free to meet anyone he wishes to. China shouldn’t be dictating its terms to India. We are glad that President publicly met with His Holiness. This sends a strong message of hope to Tibetans inside Tibet and to governments around the world.”

China has always reacted sharply on the issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama and today’s angry reaction from Beijing comes as no surprise. “Recently in disregard of China’s solemn representation and strong opposition, the Indian side insisted on arranging for the 14th Dalai Lama’s visit to the Indian Presidential palace where he took part in an event and met President Mukherjee,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang told a media briefing in Beijing.

China further said that it is ‘strongly dissatisfied’ with and ‘firmly opposed’ to the presence of the Dalai Lama at the opening session of the ‘Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit’, organised by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s Children’s Foundation.

China went a step ahead and pointed out that the Dalai Lama is in political exile and has ‘long been engaged in anti-China separatist activities with the attempt of separating Tibet away from China under the cloak of religion.”

In October this year, China had objected to India’s decision to grant permission to the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as part of southern Tibet.