US President George W. Bush is expected to attend a ceremony next week to award a congressional medal to the Dalai Lama, drawing sharp criticism from Beijing.
China hit out yesterday at Congress' plan to award its highest civilian honor to the exiled Tibetan leader.
"China resolutely opposes the US Congress' awarding of a so-called Congressional gold medal and firmly opposes any country and any person using the Dalai Lama issue to interfere in China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
Liu said China had made "solemn representations" to the US over the plans to bestow the Congressional Gold Medal on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
However, Liu made no reference to the announcement by the White House on Wednesday that Bush would attend next week's ceremony.
The encounter will mark the latest in a series of diplomatic rebuffs to Beijing's efforts to isolate the 72-year-old Dalai Lama on the world stage.
Though Bush has met privately before with the Dalai Lama, next week will mark the first time that a sitting US president will appear with him in a public event, diplomats in Washington said.
The ceremony comes after China warned Berlin that bilateral ties had been damaged by German Chancellor Angela Merkel meeting with the Dalai Lama last month.
The religious leader also met Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer last month and Australian Prime Minister John Howard in June. He will meet Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper later this month.
Apparently in response, China's state press this week began publishing blistering commentaries denouncing the Dalai Lama as a religious fraud and a "liar" who was seeking to restore Tibet's former feudal system.
"It is the 14th Dalai Lama's own deeds that have step by step betrayed his real intentions and political ambitions put under the guise of Buddhism and peace," said one lengthy commentary issued by Xinhua news agency.
China sent troops to "liberate" Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama later fled to India in 1959 with his followers.
The Dalai Lama wants greater autonomy for Tibet, but does not call of independence. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his non-violent handling of relations with China.
Winston Churchill and former South African president Nelson Mandela are among previous recipients of the medal.
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