China opposes Dalai Lama’s deliberate go to to Sri Lanka

The Chinese embassy has slammed the 87-year-old Dalai Lama accusing him of “participating in anti-China separatist actions and making an attempt to separate Tibet from China”.

Colombo,UPDATED: Jan 17, 2023 23:20 IST

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama. (PTI photo)

By Press Trust of India: China on Tuesday opposed a suggested visit by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to Sri Lanka, saying the bankrupt island nation must safeguard the bilateral relationship.

A top Chinese embassy official here met the powerful Buddhist prelates in the central town of Kandy to express opposition to the visit for which no dates have been fixed yet, a statement from the embassy said.

“Charged d’affaires Hu Wei stated that the government and people of China, including in the Tibet autonomous region, strongly oppose any foreign country receiving the Dalai Lama in any name because the 14th Dalai Lama is absolutely not a simple monk as he self-claimed, but the head of the feudal serfdom,” the assertion stated.

The embassy has slammed the 87-year-old Dalai Lama as a “political exile disguised as a religious figure who has long been engaging in anti-China separatist activities and attempting to split Tibet from China”.

The Chinese considerations adopted a gathering by a number of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks who had met the Dalai Lama at Bodh Gaya in India earlier this month and invited the religious chief to go to the island nation, a predominantly Buddhist nation.

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The opposition to the Dalai Lama’s go to comes forward of the much-anticipated response from China — the biggest bilateral creditor in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring course of.

China is the important thing for the island nation to clinch the USD 2.9 billion greenback bailout within the present financial disaster adopted by Sri Lanka’s first sovereign default on April 12.

The embassy launch stated Sri Lanka should safeguard the bilateral relationship on the recommended go to by Lama.

The Dalai Lama has been dwelling in India ever since he fled Tibet in 1959. The Tibetan government-in-exile operates from India and over 1,60,000 Tibetans reside within the nation.

Sri Lanka, which honours the one-China coverage, has by no means obtained the Dalai Lama beforehand.

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Published On:

Jan 17, 2023