Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, July 16, 1996

Telegraph, London

Tuesday July 16 1996

By Victoria Combe, Churches Correspondent and Christopher Lockwood

THE Dalai Lama will receive the stamp of royal approval this week when he takes tea with Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

It will be the first time that the exiled Tibetan leader has been given hospitality by the Royal Family and is a clear sign of his increasing respectability within the British establishment.

The meeting will further anger Chinese ministers who yesterday attacked a cross-party group of British politicians for inviting the Dalai Lama to address members of the Lords and Commons.

Their actions, said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, "will have an adverse affect on the Sino-British relationship".

A Clarence House spokesman said yesterday that Thursday's audience was a private affair and details of the meeting would not be released. The Dalai Lama refused to discuss likely topics of conversation, restricting himself to words of praise for the Queen Mother.

"When I first heard I was meeting the Queen Mother I was worried about how I should greet her. The protocol is so complicated. But I hope my monk's robes will excuse me," he said after arriving in London yesterday.

As part of his week-long trip, he will also meet Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, tomorrow. The scale of the visit will upset Peking, despite the Dalai Lama's claim that the main purpose of his trip is to give Buddhist lectures.

Recently China cancelled an official visit by Klaus Kinkel, the German foreign minister, because of a vote in the Bundestag condemning China's actions in Tibet.

The action shows China's intense sensitivity to any criticism over its record in Tibet and its inability to distinguish between official Government actions and those of free-minded Members of Parliament.

Mindful of the delicacy of relations between Britain and China in the run-up to the return of Hong Kong, the Dalai Lama will not be meeting the Prime Minister.