By GENE KRAMER

Associated Press Writer

From: World Tibet Network News, Monday, September, 11, 1995

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tibet's Dalai Lama, on his annual visit to Washington, has some delicate advice for the United States: Improve relations with China's leaders while promoting freedom for the country's people.

The exiled Buddhist leader reached the capital Sunday night after a week of meetings and speeches in Houston, Atlanta, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

The Senate welcomed him by adopting a resolution late last week urging President Clinton to meet with the 60-year-old 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

No White House appointment was announced for the Dalai Lama. The situation is touchy during current U.S. efforts to mend relations with China, which was angered by the unofficial visit of Taiwan's president to the United States in June. China has ruled Tibet since 1949.

However, his hosts seek what would be the Dalai Lama's fourth White House meeting -- he met with President Bush in 1991 and with President Clinton in 1993 and 1994 -- and they hope it takes place, said John Ackerly, legal adviser of the International Campaign for Tibet.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kent Wiedemann told a congressional panel last week he did not know if the Dalai Lama would go to the White House, but he expected that he would be "accorded the same respect as in the past," befitting his status as a Nobel laureate and international spiritual leader.

For several years, majorities in Congress have disagreed with the official administration position that Tibet is part of China.

The latest Senate resolution, adopted Friday on a voice vote, said beginning in 1949, "Tibet was forcibly and coercively invaded and occupied by China ... is an occupied country and its true representatives continue to be His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, which the Congress has recognized on several occasions."

It asks the Dalai Lama "to remind the Tibetan people that, as they move forward in their struggle toward preserving their culture and regaining their freedom, the Congress and the American people stand behind them."

The Dalai Lama says he has no intention of taking advantage of strained U.S.-China relations.

"On the contrary, I would like to urge America to improve its relations with China," he said in a statement issued on his arrival in the United States. "U.S. policy toward China must be ... designed to promote democracy, rule of law and respect for peoples currently under Chinese Communist rule."

As in the past, he urged the United States to encourage Chinese leaders to "begin substantive negotiations with me or my representatives" on Tibet's future.

"I want to state clearly that (Tibetan) independence need not be on the agenda of negotiations with China," he said, so long as they aim for equality of Chinese and Tibetans based on fairness and justice.

Sens. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., cosponsors of the Senate resolution, are hosting the Dalai Lama at a meeting in the Capitol Tuesday, and he is also meeting House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and other House members.