Sunday, February 23, 2014

China threatens drama if Obama meets Lama

Pres. Obama previously met with the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House on July 16, 2011 (Pete Souza/The White House/file).
 
Dalai Lama in D.C. (washingtonpost.com)
BEIJING, China - A planned meeting between Pres. Barack Obama and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama [will] "seriously damage" U.S. relations with China, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said Friday [Feb. 21, 2014].

The White House National Security Council said Obama would meet the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, at the White House on Friday in a show of concern about China's human rights practices.

Getting up the Great Wall of China is like arguing with a communist dictatorship.
  
Free Tibet! China out of Tibet! (AJ)
China meanwhile, calls the Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who seeks to use violent methods to [re-]establish an independent Tibet. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959 [to resist a massive Chinese invasion, occupation, and takeover], maintains he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet and denies advocating violence.
 
"The United States' arrangement for its leader to meet the Dalai would be a gross interference in China's internal affairs and is a serious violation of the norms of international relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement. More

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