Admission tickets for the afternoon lecture were distributed at the hotel starting at noon, with all 500 tickets gone in half an hour.
Unable to secure tickets for the lecture, more than 1,000 people stayed in the hotel lobby and courtyard, hoping to greet the Dalai Lama after the lecture. However, the Dalai Lama returned to his room directly after the lecture.
Not everyone welcomed the Dalai Lama.
Dozens of people from the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) and the True Awakening Joint Cultivation Buddhist Association (正覺佛教同修會) staged protests outside the Kaohsiung Arena in the morning and the hotel in the afternoon.
CUPP members shouted slogans accusing the Dalai Lama of engaging in “separatist” activities and claiming that Tibet and Taiwan are part of China.
Members from the True Awakening Buddhist Joint Cultivation Association, meanwhile, held up banners saying that the Dalai Lama refuses to accept the true teachings of the Buddha.
The group, established in 1997, represents a newly evolved Buddhist faction and is strongly critical of Tibetan Buddhism.
At a separate setting yesterday, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said the visit by the Dalai Lama would influence cross-strait relations, but that the government hoped the impact would be minimal and of short duration.
“If the visit remains confined to humanitarian and religious subjects and is purely for the purpose of consoling the souls of the victims, it won’t be a big problem,” Liu told a press conference at the 8th Field Army in Kaohsiung Country’s Cishan Township (旗山), where Cabinet officials set up a makeshift office to oversee resettlement of victims and reconstruction in the wake of Morakot.
Liu said it was impossible to measure the extent of the influence the visit by the Dalai Lama would have on cross-strait relations because “it’s sort of abstract” and the visit is “just beginning.”
Asked whether the visit would hinder the government’s agenda for signing an economic cooperation framework agreement with China, Liu said the matter was “not a unilateral decision” but depended on “how the two sides interact with each other.”
Liu would not comment on the nature of the communication that had occurred between Taiwan and China on the visit by the Dalai Lama, saying that he “was not involved” but was “aware of the process.”
“We had some information and made some impact assessments … But to say more about this would do no good,” Liu said.
Meanwhile in Taipei, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said the government should take this opportunity to review whether Taiwan is overly dependent on China.
KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said the government needed to patch up the nation’s relations with Beijing as soon as possible because between 60 percent and 70 percent of Taiwan’s exports go to China.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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