A group of US lawmakers met with the spiritual leader of Tibet Dalai Lama in India A move that is likely to be frowned upon on Wednesday Demon.
The visit came as the president Joe Biden He is set to sign a bill that puts pressure on Beijing to resolve tensions with Tibet and protect the region’s indigenous Buddhist culture.
A bipartisan delegation of seven lawmakers led by Rep. Michael McCaulIt included R-Texas and former House Speaker Nancy PelosiD-Calif., arrived in Dharamshala, a Himalayan city in northern India where the 88-year-old Dalai Lama lived in exile after fleeing China following a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
“I still hope that one day the Dalai Lama and his people will return to Tibet in peace,” McCaul said after the meeting.
McCaul said Tuesday that Biden would soon sign a bill passed by Congress last week that would allow Beijing to resume talks with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders that have been frozen since 2010 and address concerns about the cultural, religious and linguistic autonomy of the Tibetan people. will force a solution. .
“This bill says to the Chinese government: things have changed now, get ready,” Pelosi was quoted as saying. A visit to the island of Taiwan claimed by Beijing in 2022 After leaving China on Wednesday, it prompted a siege of the island with live-fire military exercises.
The lawmakers’ meeting with the Dalai Lama is likely to irritate Beijing as the US and China try to improve relations. Beijing views the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate as an anti-China “separatist”, which he denies, and opposes any contact by foreign officials.
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Tibet-related affairs were China’s internal affairs and that it would take “resolute measures” to defend China’s sovereignty, security and development interests.
“We urge the US side to abide by its commitment to recognize Tibet as part of China and not support ‘Tibet independence,'” spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing. “The US should not sign the bill.”
The Dalai Lama will visit the United States this month for treatment on his knees. It is unclear whether he will meet with US officials during his visit.
Before the presidency of Donald Trump, the Dalai Lama met with all the presidents of the United States after George HW Bush. Biden, who criticized Trump during the 2020 campaign for failing to meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader, has not met the Dalai Lama since taking office in 2021.
Brahma Chellaney, professor emeritus of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Studies, a think tank in New Delhi, said the lawmakers’ meeting with the Dalai Lama “is trying to make up for the Biden administration’s reluctance to talk about Tibet.”
“The US and India must work together to counter China’s disinformation about Tibet and thwart its plan to install a puppet as the next Dalai Lama,” NBC News said.
Like the US, India recognizes Tibet as part of China, while hosting Tibetan exiles.
McCaul said Wednesday that the United States will not allow China to interfere in the process of naming a successor to the Dalai Lama, believed to be the reincarnation of Buddha, after his death.
There is already controversy over who the Panchen Lama is, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, after the Dalai Lama and the officially atheist Chinese government in 1995 identified two different people as reincarnations.
Activists say the 6-year-old chosen by the Dalai Lama was abducted by the Chinese government days after his naming and has been forcibly detained ever since.
China says Tibet has prospered and modernized under the leadership of the Communist Party, pointing to the construction of highways, high-speed railways and other infrastructure and the promotion of tourism.
Critics argue that this comes at the cost of erasing Tibetan culture, language and religion as Beijing “de-sanctifies” the remote, mountainous region it annexed in the 1950s.
Tenpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, said, “This kind of suffering and oppression by the Chinese Communist Party authorities on the Tibetan people is unprecedented and unprecedented.” he said last year.