No excuses for foreign officials meeting Dalai Lama, says China

Foreign leaders can’t think they can get away with meeting exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama just because they are doing it in a personal capacity, as they still represent their government, a senior Chinese official said on Saturday. 

China considers the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, to be a dangerous separatist. The Nobel Peace Prize winning monk says he simply seeks genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.

Visits by the Dalai Lama to foreign countries infuriate China, and fewer and fewer national leaders are willing to meet him,