Meeting 'impairs China's interest'

Beijing raises objections to Cameron-Dalai Lama talks

Deputy Foreign Minister Song Tao summoned UK Ambassador Sebastian Wood on Tuesday morning and condemned British Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's meeting with the Dalai Lama in London on Monday.

The meeting disregards the repeated Chinese representations and the overall interest of bilateral relations and constitutes serious interference in China's internal affairs, said Song.

"It has impaired China's core interest and hurt the feeling of the Chinese people There must be concrete actions on the British side to create enabling conditions for the sound development of bilateral relations," Song added.

Also on Tuesday, China lodged representation to the two British leaders' meeting with the Dalai Lama, who, according to analysts, has been used as a "political tool" by Western countries to exert pressure on the rising China.

China voiced "strong indignation and stern objection" to the meeting, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei at a regular press conference.

On Monday in London, Cameron and Clegg met with the Dalai Lama, who, Hong said, is "a political exile who has long been engaged in anti-China secessionist activities in the name of religion".

The meeting sent false signals to the "Tibet independence" forces, said Hong.

The meeting was described as "private" and was not held at the prime minister's Downing Street residence, AFP reported.

The Dalai Lama was in London to receive the $1.8 million Templeton Prize, said the report. The British side organized the occasion, despite repeated representations from China, said Hong.

The Chinese embassy in London also lodged solemn representations to the British side, he added.

Hong said the issue regarding Tibet is of exclusive concern to China's internal affairs. "China objects firmly to any foreign leader's meeting with the Dalai Lama in any form and opposes any country, or anyone, interfering in China's internal affairs by using Tibet-related issues," he said.

Hong urged the British side to treat seriously China's solemn stance, stop indulging and supporting anti-China "Tibet independence" forces and take immediate and effective measures to minimize the baneful impact, so as to safeguard the overall development of bilateral ties.

The Dalai Lama fled to exile in India in 1959 during a failed uprising against the Chinese government.

A string of self-immolations broke out in Tibetan areas in the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai bordering Tibet in recent months.

At least two mob attacks on police stations were reported in Sichuan's volatile Tibetan areas in late January, leaving at least two people dead and more than a dozen injured, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The Dalai Lama clique has made more attempts to split China, and a few monks and nuns in the Tibetan-populated regions echoed them at a distance," said Li Changping, a top provincial official in Sichuan, during a recent meeting in Beijing, reported Xinhua.

"The Dalai Lama allows himself to be used as a tool by Western powers keen to humiliate China," said Brendan O'Neill, editor of an online magazine named "spiked", in an article published in the Guardian, a British national daily newspaper.

Contact the writers at chengguangjin@chinadaily.com.cn and zhouwa@chinadaily.com.cn