Beijing. 23th September: Regardless of China's strong opposition and stern representations, the US administration arranged a third meeting in the White House between US President Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama on 13th September, which constituted another grave act of deliberate interference in China's internal affairs The previous two meetings between the two occurred in 1993 and 1994.

The current Sino-US relations have already run into trouble as a result of the US government playing the Taiwan card" by permitting Li Teng-hui to visit the US to try to create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan"

Logically, the US administration should have acted swiftly to eliminate the adverse effect of Li Teng-hui's tour on Sino-US Ties. Nevertheless, it proceeded to play the "Tibet card" instead, and by supporting and conniving at the Dalai Lama's secessionist activity, brought new trouble to Sino-US relations.

On the questions of Taiwan and Tibet, which are directly related to China's territorial sovereignty, the US administration has seldom meant what it said, often saying this today and otherwise tomorrow, proving perfidious and unfaithful.

Time and again Washington has publicly admitted that Tibet is part of China, and declared that it will not recognize an independent Tibet or Tibet as a sovereign state, nor the Dalai Lama's "government" in exile.

But covertly the US government and the Congress have been backing the separatist activity of the Dalai Lama for a long time. In the past few years, the Dalai Lama has been granted audience with US heads of state several times. During this last trip in particular, he was not only accorded high-level official reception, but was also offered a political podium from which to preach independence for Tibet.

The Dalai Lama duly expressed his gratitude to the US Congress for its support in the past years when he met the Republican leaders in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

The US administration had announced not long ago that the US president was not going to meet with the Dalai Lama. But under its arrangement, Bill Clinton did meet with the Dalai Lama when he "dropped in" on the latter's meeting with Vice-President Al Gore at the White House.

This happening reminded people of an earlier story.

Not long after the Clinton administration had professed not to allow Li Teng-Hui to visit the US, it granted him the entry visa for a "private visit" all of a sudden.

Thus it can be seen that both the Clinton-Dalai Lama meeting and Li's US trip were effected through very careful premeditation and arrangement.

To describe the Clinton-Dalai Lama meeting as an incidental event is nothing but Washington's diplomatic rhetoric to gloss over its connivance at the Dalai Lama's activity to split China.

The US administration in its self-justification said that the US leaders met with the Dalai Lama because he is not a political leader or a politician but a "religious leader". This is purely a gross deception as it is universally known that the Dalai Lama has mainly been engaged in activities to split Tibet from China rather than in religious ones over the past decades.

The Dalai Lama, in a statement issued in the United States, called on the US government to exert pressure on China on the "Tibet problem" and "play a vital role" in solving the issue, claiming "addressing the question of Tibet is in the self-interest of the United States"

In a speech at Harvard University, the Dalai Lama even requested the US and other Western countries to help him "free Tibet from the Chinese"

One is tempted to ask: What in these remarks of the Dalai Lama's has anything to do with religion? In fact, like Li Teng-hui, the Dalai Lama is a shameless politician who feels quite self-possessed with alien backing. His political words and deeds have totally torn off his religious cover.

The US government is not unaware of this.

The US government has repeatedly said that Sino-US relations are very important and it is its hope to improve the relations, as "there are a lot of things for them to do together". But at the same time, the US government has been using various excuses to make trouble for the bilateral relations. Soon after the "Taiwan card", it played the "Tibet card", inflicting new injuries to the relations while the old wounds have not healed. What the US government has done makes one wonder whether it has any sincerity in its claim to improve the Sino-US relations.

China has never done anything harmful to the United States. The United States, however, has hurt China time and again on such sensitive questions as Taiwan and Tibet, which are related to China's sovereignty.

China has consistently attached great importance to improving and developing Sino-US relations. It is in favour of "enhancing mutual trust, reducing trouble, developing cooperation and refraining from confrontation" between the two countries.

China has meant what it has said.

If the United States does not really want to resume the obsolete "containment" policy towards China and genuinely hopes to improve Sino-US relations, it should cease to interfere in China's internal affairs and refrain from making any new troubles.