India-China meeting off over Dalai Lama: source

Sunday, November 27, 2011

AFP

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule (AFP/JIJI PRESS/File, Jiji Press)

NEW DELHI — A meeting between Indian and Chinese diplomats has been cancelled after Beijing objected to a scheduled speech in New Delhi by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, officials said Sunday.

A senior Indian foreign ministry official, who declined to be named, said talks on long-standing border issues that were slated to begin in New Delhi on Monday had been called off.

"Beijing wanted Delhi to cancel the Buddhist meeting where his holiness the Dalai Lama will be speaking on Wednesday," the official told AFP.

"India refused to accept China's demand as the leader is free to speak on spiritual matters."

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He later founded the government in exile in the northern Indian town Dharamshala after being offered refuge.

Tensions over Tibet have risen this year as nine Buddhist monks and two nuns have set themselves alight in ethnically Tibetan parts of southwest China in protest at religious repression.

Beijing last month called the Dalai Lama's stance on the self-immolations "terrorism in disguise" and said he had "played up such issues to incite more people to follow suit".

China vilifies the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" who incites violence in Tibet, while the Dalai Lama insists his sole focus is a peaceful campaign for greater autonomy.

He has held fruitless talks through his envoys with Beijing about the status of his Himalayan homeland.

His office on Sunday confirmed that he will be addressing a Buddhist congregation on Wednesday in New Delhi.

The disputed borders between India and China have been the subject of 14 rounds of talks since 1962, when the two nations fought a brief but brutal war over the issue.

Chinese infrastructure build-up along the frontier has become a major source of concern for India, which increasingly sees China as a longer-term threat to its security than traditional rival Pakistan.