China warned US Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, yesterday to stop “supporting and conniving with” the Dalai Lama, saying that meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader hurt Sino-US relations.
McCain met the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in Colorado on Friday and urged China to address human rights concerns and free Tibetan prisoners. He praised the Dalai Lama as a “transcendent international role model and hero.”
But China’s Foreign Ministry repeated its long-standing position that anything to do with Tibet was purely an internal affair.
“The Chinese side expresses deep concern about the above report,” spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.
“We oppose the Dalai engaging in splittist activities in any country in any capacity, and oppose anyone using the Dalai issue to interfere in Chinese internal affairs. This position is consistent and clear,” he said.
Liu urged Americans to recognize that the Dalai Lama was trying to separate China and was aiming to destroy social stability in Tibet “under the cloak of religion.”
Though China and envoys for the Dalai Lama have met twice this year following rioting in Tibet in March, the government regularly blasts him for seeking independence for the region.
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