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Obama throws support behind Dalai Lama, Tibet rights
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Feb 21, 2014


China accuses US of meddling after Obama-Dalai Lama meeting
Beijing (AFP) Feb 22, 2014 - China on Saturday accused the United States of meddling in its domestic affairs after President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama at the White House, and said it is up to Washington to take steps to avoid further damaging ties.

"The US seriously interfered in China's internal affairs by allowing the Dalai's visit to the United States and arranging the meetings with US leaders," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.

"We urge the US to take China's concerns seriously, stop tolerance and support of anti-China separatist forces, cease interfering in China's internal affairs and immediately take measures to eliminate its baneful influence to avoid further impairment to China-US relations."

China had warned on Friday after news broke of the planned meeting that an encounter between Obama and the Dalai Lama would damage relations between Washington and Beijing, and urged the US to cancel it.

Beijing considers Tibet an integral part of its territory and regards the Dalai Lama as a separatist.

The meeting went ahead, however, with Obama on Friday offering his "strong support" for the protection of Tibetans' human rights in China.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui late Friday in Beijing summoned the charge d'affaires at the US embassy to protest the meeting, the ministry said in a separate statement.

"China expressed strong indignation and firm opposition" to the "erroneous acts" of the US in interfering in China's internal issues, the ministry quoted Zhang as saying.

The ministry statement identified the US official by a Chinese name, but the official Xinhua news agency in an English-language report gave his name as Daniel Kritenbrink.

"Tibetan issues fall purely into the domestic affairs of China," Zhang said. "The US has no right to interfere."

The meeting with the Dalai Lama "will seriously sabotage China-US relations and surely impair the interests of the US itself," he said.

"The US must take concrete actions to win the trust of the Chinese government and its people."

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

US President Barack Obama on Friday offered his "strong support" for the protection of Tibetans' human rights in China as he defied protests from Beijing to meet the Dalai Lama.

With China warning that the meeting would derail ties between the world's two largest economies, Obama took care to avoid any trappings of an official visit, receiving the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the Map Room of the White House residence and not the Oval Office where he usually talks to dignitaries.

The Dalai Lama, usually chatty and playful with foreign audiences, was nowhere to be seen at the White House, which did not allow in reporters.

The administration instead released an official photograph of the robed Buddhist monk gesticulating with one hand and clutching prayer beads in the other as he spoke to a studious-looking Obama over glasses of water.

In Beijing, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui summoned the US charge d'affaires, Daniel Kritenbrink, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"China expresses strong indignation and firm opposition," Zhang was quoted as saying.

- Obama's 'strong support' -

The White House in a statement said that Obama expressed "his strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions and the protection of human rights for Tibetans in the People's Republic of China."

The statement said that Obama backed the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland for India in 1959, in his "Middle Way" path of peacefully advocating greater autonomy for Tibetans.

Obama called for China to resume talks with the Dalai Lama's envoys, which broke down in 2010 after making no headway.

The statement rejected Beijing's charges that the Dalai Lama had a separatist agenda and that his meeting was part of a plot to split China.

In a bid to follow up on Obama's concerns, Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday tapped human rights official Sarah Sewall to fill the position of US coordinator on Tibet policy.

China calls the Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying decried the meeting as "a gross interference in China's internal affairs" which would "seriously impair China-US relations."

- Growing human rights concerns -

Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile, dismissed Beijing's criticism, saying that the Dalai Lama has clearly stated he does not have an "anti-China" agenda and is not seeking independence.

Sangay hailed Obama for holding his third meeting as president with the Dalai Lama. The two Nobel peace laureates last met in 2011.

"It sends a very powerful message to Tibetans inside Tibet because it gives them a sense of hope that their voices are heard, even by the most powerful person in the world," Sangay told AFP.

China has for decades voiced anger at foreign dignitaries' meetings with the Dalai Lama, who has developed a global following and addresses standing-room-only crowds across the Western world and India. He flew out later Friday to San Francisco to deliver lectures.

Human rights groups have voiced growing concern since China launched a crackdown on Tibetan demonstrations in 2008. After the unrest, more than 120 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in suicide protests against what they see as political oppression, controls on their religion and discrimination by China's Han majority.

The visit comes on the heels of a trip to Beijing by Kerry, but well ahead of an Asia-Pacific summit there in November that Obama is expected to attend -- meaning that China could not retaliate by canceling a high-profile visit.

Obama is due in Asia in April, but has no stop in China planned -- though the visit will be dominated by questions over Beijing's tense relations with its neighbors.

Obama came under domestic criticism in 2009 when he did not see the Dalai Lama during a visit to Washington, as the new president looked to start on the right foot with China.

But the optimism of the early days of the Obama presidency has dimmed, with the United States pressing China on a range of concerns including its territorial disputes with US allies Japan and the Philippines and Beijing's alleged cyber espionage campaign.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the US-China relationship was "very broad" and that the two countries were working together on a number of issues, including Iran and North Korea.

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