Danish premier stands up to China over Dalai Lama

In this story: 'We must follow nonviolence' Karmapa Lama can stay in India RELATED STORIES, SITES

April 21, 2000
Web posted at: 12:14 p.m. HKT (0414 GMT)

COPENHAGEN -- Responding to Chinese opposition, Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said on Thursday he will meet the Dalai Lama as planned.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi had told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday that the Chinese government had informed Copenhagen of its opposition to the meeting.

"We hope that the Danish government will abolish its arrangements for the meeting between the Danish premier and the Dalai Lama so that bilateral relations can develop smoothly," Sun said.

AUDIO The Dalai Lama speaks about his hopes for Tibet 113k/10 sec. AIFF or WAV sound     ALSO     MESSAGE BOARD The Dalai Lama     RESOURCES Asiaweek: The Great Escape

China's warning had little impact on Rasmussen. "I take note of the Chinese point of view, but it does not change my decision to meet the Dalai Lama," the prime minister said in a brief statement.

Rasmussen will make an official visit to China from May 7 to 14 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Copenhagen and Communist China. He is due to meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, in Denmark a week later.

"The Chinese side is unwilling to see any damage done to the bilateral relations because of the Dalai Lama question," Sun said.

His remarks came amid a political row in Denmark over an earlier report that China was consulted about the meeting between Rasmussen and the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing accuses of advocating independence for Tibet.

'We must follow nonviolence'

Beijing regularly protests at international visits by the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet for India after an abortive and bloody uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

For his own part, the Dalai Lama said he wanted autonomy for his native Tibet, not independence from China. He made his comments while a weeklong visit to Japan.

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader flew out of Tokyo late Thursday morning for India, where he has lived since fleeing Tibet four decades ago.

"Whether we like it or not, we have to live side by side -- the Tibetans and the Chinese," he said. "We must follow nonviolence."

Karmapa Lama can stay in India

As he left Japan, the Dalai Lama said the 17th Karmapa Lama -- one of the highest lamas in Tibet's Buddhist hierarchy -- has been granted unofficial permission to remain in India.

The Dalai Lama expressed his surprise when he described learning of the flight into exile of the 17th Karmapa Lama, who escaped to India in January.

Speaking for the first time about why the 14-year-old living Buddha had decided to flee China, he said: "I heard he had left his own monastery and I was very much worried.

"Then in one or two days another report said he had already reached Dharamsala," said Tibet's temporal and spiritual leader, who himself fled over the Himalayas and into exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala in 1959.

The 14-year-old Karmapa Lama arrived in Dharamsala, seat of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, on January 5 after a 1,400-km (875-mile) journey over the Himalayas.

The Dalai Lama also said he feared that another boy, whom he had recognized as the reincarnation of the second highest Tibetan figure, may be being taught in China to doubt the Buddhist faith.

Asked about the whereabouts of that 10-year-old boy, the Dalai Lama said: "I have no information."

But he added that he had heard very recently that the child's education was focused on science, and this led him to fear that China was trying to encourage the child to doubt his religion.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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April 13, 2000
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April 12, 2000
Traveling Dalai Lama to miss Taiwan president's inauguration
April 10, 2000
China blasts proposed Dalai Lama visit to Taiwan
April 5, 2000

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