Mbeki bows to China and snubs Dalai Lama

By Melanie Gosling (November 25 1999, Cape Times)

President Thabo Mbeki will not meet Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, when he visits South Africa early next month because of pressure from the Chinese government.

A source close to the President said on Wednesday that the Chinese government had told Mbeki last week that they did not want him to see the Dalai Lama.

The source said former Chinese premier Li Peng and his delegation had raised the issue during their visit last week.

"They briefed him (Mbeki) about it, and said 'We don't want you to see him (the Dalai Lama).' They raised the issue in a passionate way. If a meeting were to take place, it would provoke some strong reaction.

"The reality is that China cannot be ignored in today's world. It is powerful and has huge possibilities of markets for South Africa. With globalisation of the economy, what matters in the world today is how a country positions itself in relation to world markets," the source said.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will visit South Africa to take part in a inter-denominational conference on world peace, the World Parliament of Religions.

It is understood that Mbeki will be receiving a delegation of world religious leaders attending the conference in Cape Town early next month. Although the President had not been given the names of those in the religious delegation, it is possible that the Dalai Lama would be among them.

The Cape Times was told that if this were the case, the two leaders "could possibly meet" in a group, but that there would be no separate meeting.

The Chinese government, which invaded Tibet in 1950, considers Tibet a part of China and regards any meeting between the Dalai Lama and foreign leaders as implicit recognition of Tibet's right to autonomy.

The Chinese government tried to pressure the Israeli government not to meet the Dalai Lama on Wednesday, but Israel's parliamentary speaker, Avraham Burg, ignored the heavy pressure.

China has loudly protested against the exiled Tibetan leader's visit to Israel, which came just a day before Li Peng met Burg and Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy.

Burg said the meeting would not hurt Israel's relations with China but would send a message that foreign policy should be based on humanitarian as well as strategic interests.

"We should look at our commercial, cultural, educational and value system exchanges with China on one hand, and on the other hand we should develop our diplomatic and international values system with recognised people like the Dalai Lama," Burg said.

Chinese Ambassador to Israel, Wang Changyi, and some Israeli cabinet ministers have warned Burg that meeting the Dalai Lama would harm Israel's relations with China. Israeli officials have avoided formal meetings with the Buddhist monk on previous visits, though Israel's Education Minister Yossi Sarid also met him on Wednesday and praised his efforts for peace.

The Dalai Lama, who leads Tibet's government-in-exile from India, said his five-day trip to Israel, to attend an inter-faith conference, was religious, not political.

"Wherever I go, it's a spiritual, cultural and educational visit, and here it is certainly not a political visit," he said on his arrival.

"If governments find any inconvenience to my visit, then I always keep in my mind that I should not cause embarrassment to the host country," he said.

The Tibetan leader, who fled to India after a failed uprising against the Chinese in 1959, insisted Tibet did not want to break away from Beijing.

"I'm not seeking independence, and not a single Tibetan is dreaming of a restoration of our old style of life," he said.

Today there are over 130 000 Tibetans living in exile, many of them in settlements in India and Nepal.

Thousands are imprisoned in Tibet for their religious or political activities, and Tibetans are rarely permitted to leave the country.

For decades the Dalai Lama strove for a political solution to the Tibet-China problem.