From Reuters:
China on Thursday shrugged off a warning by the International Olympic Committee not to mix politics with sport, describing anti-Dalai Lama comments during the Tibet torch relay as “striving to stabilise” the region.
Beijing blamed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader and his followers for deadly riots that broke out in Tibetan capital in Lhasa on March 14, and regularly accuses him of scheming to split the restive Himalayan region from China.
The IOC on Wednesday said it had written to Beijing Olympic organisers to ask them not to politicise the Games after Tibet’s Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli said China’s “red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above the (Tibetan sky)”.
