{"id":1672,"date":"2009-09-15T18:08:34","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T18:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee.php"},"modified":"2009-09-15T18:08:34","modified_gmt":"2009-09-15T18:08:34","slug":"china-opposes-us-officials-mee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee","title":{"rendered":"China Opposes US Officials Meeting Dalai Lama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BEIJING &#8211; China criticized a meeting between aides of President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying Tuesday it opposed any such engagements with the Tibetan spiritual leader, but stopping short of threatening a response.<br \/>\nForeign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing firmly opposed any foreign officials meeting with the Dalai Lama, whom China claims is intent on seizing independence for the Chinese region of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has said he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibetans.<br \/>\nValerie Jarrett, a top adviser to Obama, met Sunday and Monday with the Tibetan spiritual leader in Dharmsala, India, ahead of his planned visit to the United States early next month. Jarrett, who was accompanied by Maria Otero, the U.S. State Department undersecretary for democracy and global affairs, was on a private visit, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi said.<br \/>\nThe Dalai Lama has previously said he would like to meet Obama when he visits Washington in October, as he has every president since George H.W. Bush. But on Monday he said he was looking forward to meeting the president after Obama visits China, which will be in November.<br \/>\nAsked if Beijing had made any formal representations to Washington regarding the Dalai Lama&#8217;s wish to meet the American leader, Jiang said only that &#8220;the U.S. side is very clear about China&#8217;s position.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;We oppose Dalai&#8217;s engagement in separatist activities in any country under whatever capacity and in whatever name and we oppose other countries&#8217; officials meeting with Dalai in any form,&#8221; Jiang said at a regular press briefing.<br \/>\nChina canceled a major summit with the European Union last year because French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the spiritual leader.<br \/>\nA White House visit for the Dalai Lama would be seen as a powerful message of support to Tibetans struggling for their rights, but it could put Washington in an awkward position.<br \/>\nThe United States is seeking Chinese cooperation on several fronts, including global economic recovery efforts and the nuclear standoffs in North Korea and Iran. Its emphasis on economic and diplomatic ties with China has prompted criticism that the Obama administration is reluctant to confront China on sensitive human rights and trade issues.<br \/>\nChina says Tibet has been part of its territory for four centuries. It has governed the Himalayan region with an iron first since communist troops took control there in 1951. Many Tibetans claim they were effectively independent for most of their history and say Chinese rule and economic exploitation are eroding their traditional Buddhist culture.<br \/>\nThe Dalai Lama fled to India during a 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule and travels the world promoting the Tibetan cause. He advocates some form of autonomy that would allow Tibetans to freely practice their culture, language and religion.<br \/>\n<em>Associated Press &#8211; September 15, 2009<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIJING &#8211; China criticized a meeting between aides of President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying Tuesday it opposed any such engagements with the Tibetan spiritual leader, but stopping short of threatening a response. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing firmly opposed any foreign officials meeting with the Dalai Lama, whom China claims&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>China Opposes US Officials Meeting Dalai Lama<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China Opposes US Officials Meeting Dalai Lama\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BEIJING &#8211; China criticized a meeting between aides of President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying Tuesday it opposed any such engagements with the Tibetan spiritual leader, but stopping short of threatening a response. 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Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing firmly opposed any foreign officials meeting with the Dalai Lama, whom China claims&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-09-15T18:08:34+00:00","author":"mconsoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee","name":"China Opposes US Officials Meeting Dalai Lama","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-15T18:08:34+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-15T18:08:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/china-opposes-us-officials-mee#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"China Opposes US Officials Meeting Dalai Lama"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6","name":"mconsoli","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","caption":"mconsoli"},"description":"\"Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d -Benjamin Disraeli","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/mconsoli"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}