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Politics off menu for Dalai's trip

Taiwanese workers remove chairs from a truck draped with the Dalai Lama's posters yesterday at a stadium in Taipei County. PHOTO: AP

On the eve of a visit by Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Taiwan officials called on China not to politicize his trip, saying a free and democratic society has no reason to stop his visit.

Chen Ming-tung (陳明通), vice chairman of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, said the Dalai Lama's trip will be strictly private and religious in nature and will involve no political implications nor the so-called "Taiwan question."

He added that the Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan is in line with the government's policy of respecting and supporting freedom, democracy and human rights.

The Dalai Lama is scheduled to arrive in Taipei this afternoon for an 11-day visit, his second such trip to Taiwan since March 1997.

Chen said Taiwan has a large number of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners and their meeting with the Dalai Lama during his stay will represent another example of people enjoying full freedom of religion in Taiwan.

For his part, the Dalai Lama had also said Beijing has no reason to worry.

"If they [China] know the reality and look at my activities from a wider perspective, then I don't see any reason for them to be concerned." Dalai Lama PHOTO: AP

"My main goal is to meet the Buddhist community there and explain Tibetan Buddhism," the Nobel Peace laureate said on Wednesday in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, the seat of his government-in-exile.

"If they [China] know the reality and look at my activities from a wider perspective, then I don't see any reason for them to be concerned," he said.

Beijing, however, described the visit as a collusion by the Dalai Lama with Taiwan "separatists." The visit is "a further step made by the Taiwan authorities and the Dalai Lama clique to divide the motherland by colluding with each other," the People's Daily overseas edition said in a commentary yesterday.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of being a "splittist," even though he has long renounced the quest for Tibetan independence and instead only asks for a high level of autonomy.

The Dalai Lama is set to meet President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Thursday and with Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) tomorrow.

Other meetings, with former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and the leaders of the DPP, KMT and People First Party have still to be scheduled.

The visit will begin with a speech tomorrow on "Ethics for the New Millennium," followed by six days of religious talks, including an initiation of the Buddha of Compassion, or Avalokiteshwara, known in Chinese as Kwanyin (觀音).

The speech on April 1 will be followed by a four-day teaching on the Prajna Paramita (般若波羅蜜多) -- which deals with the Buddhist concept of emptiness -- followed by an initiation of the Buddha of Compassion on April 6 and April 7.

On April 8, the Dalai Lama will head to Changhua for a ceremony in honor of the Buddha's birthday. He will meet with Master Cheng Yen (證嚴) at the Tzu Chi foundation's Talin hospital (慈濟大林醫院).

Vying for a place in this busy schedule, a group of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns said yesterday that they will take advantage of the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to inform the Tibetan spiritual leader that the centuries-old discrimination and inequality that Buddhist nuns have suffered should be corrected and that the Dalai Lama, as a respected figure in the Buddhist world, should not sit idly in the face of the issue.
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