From the New York Times:
Taiwanese President Ma Ying jeou says his government has agreed to a visit by the Dalai Lama to comfort survivors of a devastating typhoon.
Such a visit is likely to anger China, which considers the Buddhist spiritual leader a ”splittist” for promoting Tibetan autonomy. The move comes at a time when China and Taiwan are developing closer ties after decades of enmity. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
The Chinese Government has denounced the proposed visit:
“No matter under what form or identity Dalai uses to enter Taiwan, we resolutely oppose this,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Bureau said in a statement carried by Xinhua news agency.
“Some of the people in the Democratic Progressive Party use the disaster rescue excuse to invite Dalai to Taiwan to sabotage the hard-earned positive situation of cross-straits relations.”… China is considered unlikely to retaliate by choking off growing economic ties between the long-time political rivals.
By blaming the opposition DPP and not Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou or the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT), Beijing may have indicated it does not wish to escalate the issue.
See also past CDT posts on the Dalai Lama.
