China has officially expressed its strong displeasure with Slovenia for allowing the Dalai Lama to visit Slovenia and meet the country's top leaders.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao voiced China's displeasure in Beijing on Saturday, when asked to comment on the Dalai Lama's meeting with Slovenian leaders during his visit to Slovenia as guest of the University of Ljubljana.
Liu said Slovenia allowed the Dalai Lama to visit and arranged for him to meet the country's top leaders despite repeated requests from the Chinese side to discuss the matter.
As is widely known, the issue of Tibet is related to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Liu said. The Slovenian move provided an arena for the Dalai Lama to peddle his "independence of Tibet" rhetoric which promotes his conniving to split the motherland, gravely impairs China's sovereignty, hurts the Chinese people's feelings and dignity, and harms Sino-Slovenian relations. The Chinese side sternly asks the Slovenian side to take prompt measures, effectively observe the principle that Tibet is an integral part of China, and promise that similar incidents will never occur again.
Over the past four decades, the central government has been urging the Dalai Lama to abandon his "Tibet independence" stance and give up political activities aimed at separating Tibet from the motherland.
However, the Dalai Lama refuses to abandon his stance and his separatist activities. He has become an obedient tool used by anti-China forces outside China.
(China Daily July 8, 2002)
