Chinese delegation, visiting US officials, warns about future American overtures to Dalai Lama
The trip came only a few days after the US ambassador to India met the exiled spiritual leader and expressed hopes that he would make another trip to the US
A group of Chinese legislators from Tibet, while on a recent visit to the US, called on their American counterparts to refrain any contact with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Their visit came only a few days after the US ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster, met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan exile government is located, and expressed hopes that the spiritual leader would make another trip to the US.
The Dalai Lama, 82, gave a public talk at the University of California in San Diego last June but has cancelled most of his overseas trips for this year primarily because of health concerns.
During their six-day visit to Washington and San Francisco that ended on Monday, the Chinese delegation – led by Baima Wangdui, Communist Party secretary of Lhasa, capital of Tibet – met US Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, and Representatives Darin LaHood, Republican of Illinois; Rick Larsen, Democrat of Washington; and Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, who have been critical of how the Chinese government has handled human rights issues in Tibet.
