|
|
CHINA: Relations With EU May Suffer Over Dalai Lama Visit
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING, Dec 8 (IPS) - China has attacked the Dalai Lama over his latest diplomatic forays in Europe, calling the exiled Tibetan leader a separatist and a "political hooligan" and has warned that China-EU relations may suffer.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama on the weekend privately in Gdansk, Poland, during celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of former Polish President Lech Walesa winning the Nobel Peace prize. The meeting is significant as France currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
The Gdansk gathering was also loaded with political symbolism. The Dalai Lama is also a Nobel Peace laureate, winning the prize for his long and non-violent pursuit of autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.
And then the Buddhist leader was invited to the port city to join celebrations for Walesa’s award for leading the Polish Solidarity movement in a peaceful struggle against the then communist regime.
"If I were in the country of his Holiness, I would fight there too," Walesa told a youth forum on the weekend, speaking in debates alongside the Dalai Lama.
The former union leader is revered as an icon of peaceful resistance that burgeoned in Poland and swept over to other Eastern European countries, eventually bringing down the Berlin Wall and leading to the collapse of communism.
"There is no situation where there is no chance, you just have to choose your means and your strength and time to reshape the political scene at the right time,’’ Walesa was reported as saying.
The Dalai Lama for his part saw democracy as a solution to the contentious issue of Tibet, which has cast a shadow over China’s attempts to cultivate an image of a peaceful, rising superpower.
"When China becomes more democratic, with freedom of speech, with rule of law and particularly with freedom of press...once China becomes an open, modern society, then the Tibetan issue, I think within a few days, can be solved," he said.
The day before while addressing the European Parliament in Brussels, the exiled Tibetan leader fired another salvo at Beijing, saying China lacked the moral authority to be a true superpower.
But nothing angered Beijing as much as the Dalai Lama‘s meeting with Sarkozy. On several occasions last week China demanded that the French President cancel his planned meeting and even called off a key China-EU summit scheduled for this month as a warning.
On Sunday, Beijing summoned the French ambassador to China and lodged a "strong protest," according to the state news agency Xinhua. The meeting amounts to a "rude intervention" into Chinese affairs, the agency quoted deputy foreign minister He Yafei as telling the ambassador.
The state television had more details about the meeting, quoting He as saying the exiled Tibetan leader is a separatist and "political hooligan."
"Sarkozy gave no consideration to numerous Chinese citizens’ ‘intense opposition’ to seeing the Dalai Lama," He said. "This has hurt the feelings of Chinese people gravely."
"France now must correct its mistake with actual deeds to enable China-France relations to continue to be healthy and advance forward," he said.
Recently, ties between France and China have soured over the issue of Tibet. In April, when Paris greeted the Beijing Olympic torch, pro-Tibetan protesters attacked the flame-bearers and provoked scuffles. Scenes of skirmishes by protesters bearing pro-Tibetan slogans were broadcast all over the world and led to widespread calls in China for a boycott of French goods.
Sarkozy has defended his meeting with the Dalai Lama, saying it did not pose a threat to Beijing. "The Dalai Lama confirmed what I already knew, that he is not demanding independence," Sarkozy said on the weekend.
The Buddhist leader says he is seeking "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet. Since fleeing his homeland following a failed uprising in 1959 against the Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops marched into the region, the Dalai Lama has lived in exile in Dharamsala, India.
Chinese officials have long discarded the Dalai Lama’s calls for greater autonomy for Tibetans in China as a smokescreen for a push for outright independence for the Himalayan region. They distrust the Tibetan spiritual leader and blame him for stirring up anti-China sentiment among Tibetans and overseas.
The eight rounds of talks between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing held in November ended in failure after Chinese negotiators said the proposal for autonomy put forward by the Tibetans amounted to ethnic cleansing, disguised independence and the reintroduction of serfdom and theocracy.
That was followed by a conclave of Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala where the community decided to uphold the Dalai Lama’s goal of broader autonomy for Tibet through peaceful dialogue with Beijing.
The affirmation of the Dalai Lama’s peaceful quest for "meaningful autonomy" though has not led to any softening on China’s part.
On Monday, the ‘China Daily’ published a lengthy commentary by Ye Xaiowen, head of China Administration of Religious Affairs, which slammed the Dalai Lama’s "real ethnic autonomy" as a "scheme disguised under a legal packaging."
"What they really want is not Tibet's ‘autonomy’, but the ‘suicide’ of the Tibetans caused by ethnic segregation, ethnic antagonism, and separation. Has not the ‘Tibetan Youth Congress’ clamoured for ‘fighting for independence’ through ‘suicides’?" Ye wrote.
In recent months, the Tibetan Youth Congress, a group of younger and more radical exiles disillusioned with the dialogue with Beijing, has advocated independence for Tibet through a series of confrontational protests.
But the majority of the exiled community voted in support of the Dalai Lama’s peaceful dialogue for autonomy, reflecting the spiritual leader’s continued sway among Tibetans.
(END/2008)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
