The Chicago Tribune - September 20, 1995

BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Kyodo) -- China's leading daily Thursday blasted last week's meeting between U.S President Bill Clinton and Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, saying the visit has brought "new troubles" to already faltering Sino-U.S. relations.

"While the U.S. should be adopting concrete measures to dispel the odious results of (Taiwan President) Lee Teng-hui's visit, they instead have ignored the larger interests of Sino-U.S. relations and produced this 'dropping in' farce," a signed editorial in the People's Daily said.

The editorial was referring to Clinton's "drop in" visit last Wednesday to a 40-minute talk between the Dalai Lama and Vice President Al Gore in the White House.

"This ambivalence by the U.S. government cannot but cause suspicion and leads one to wonder how much sincerity they really have toward the improvement of Sino-U.S. relations," it said.

The editorial listed China's routine objections to such meetings, accusing the Dalai Lama of trying to split China, while maintaining that Tibet is an inseparable part of the Chinese mainland and the meeting was a violation of China's sovereignty.

It further countered the U.S. position that the meeting was held out of respect for the Dalai Lama's status as a religious leader and winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

"He has long sat outside China and has gone to the corners of the world in an effort to split Tibet from China. There is not one thing religiously pure about him. The political words and actions of the Dalai Lama have long ago torn to shreds his religious mantle," it said.

"If the U.S. hopes to improve Sino-U.S. relations then it must take up real actions, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and quit deliberately raising new obstacles," it said.