Meeting the Dalai Lama will "severely impair" Sino-US ties, China warned President Barack Obama, Friday.
China asked Obama to call off his meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader scheduled Friday in the White House Map Room. "We urge the United States to take China's concerns seriously and not to facilitate or offer occasion for the Dalai Lama to conduct anti-China secessionist moves," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. said in a press release, reports Xinhua News Agency.
"China is greatly concerned about the meeting, and has lodged solemn representations to the U.S. side," Chunying said. She added that the issue of Tibet was an internal matter and no country had the right to meddle.
According to China, the Dalai Lama is using violent means to achieve independence for Tibet. However, the 78-year-old Noble Peace Prize laureate said he only wants real autonomy for Tibet and has been using peaceful methods to accomplish it.
Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama comes at a time when relations between the two countries are in troubled waters. The U.S. is unhappy about China's increasing assertiveness and dominance in the East China Sea and South China Sea. The Asian Tiger country is also seemingly bothered by Obama's U.S. strategic shift toward Asia, reports Reuters.
China is against countries holding any official talks with the Dalai Lama, who sought asylum in India in 1959. British Prime Minister David Cameron's meeting with the Dalai Lama last year also drew China's wrath. This also resulted in a delay in Cameron's subsequent scheduled visit to China.
The U.S. spokesperson affirmed that the nation recognized Tibet as a part of the People's Republic of China but America was equally concerned about human rights issue in the region. In the last five years there have been 125 immolations in protest against Chinese rule by the Tibetans, reports CNN. Following such incidents, Beijing has taken a strong stance against such immolation bids as a form of protest and even convicted several Tibetans for provoking people to set themselves ablaze.
"We are concerned about continuing tensions and the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibetan areas of China," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told CNN. "We will continue to urge the Chinese government to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions, as a means to reduce tensions."
The Dalai Lama has met Obama previously in 2010 and 2011 despite protests by China. During his ongoing U.S. visit, the Dalai Lama adopted a more moderate approach toward capitalism unlike Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic Church, who criticized free enterprise. The Dalai Lama said that the capitalism can work if blended with compassion, reports The Wall Street Journal. "I've developed more respect about capitalism," he told the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute in Washington on Thursday.
