TAIPEI, March 20 (Reuter) - When Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, sets foot in Taiwan on Saturday, he steps into a complex minefield of explosive issues that divide Beijing and Taipei, himself and China and even Taiwan's people themselves.

In a journey laden with significance for Taiwan, China and Tibet, the Tibetan Buddhist god-king planned a six-day tour of the Nationalist-ruled and deeply Buddhist island.

By conventional reckoning, it will be the Dalai Lama's first footfall on Chinese soil since 1959, when he fled into exile in India after a failed anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet.

Even that is a point of contention, however, as Taiwan's strong pro-independence opposition factions reject the notion that the island is a part of China.

The planned visit has angered the communist government in China, which proclaims as gospel that both Taiwan and Tibet have been inalienable parts of China for centuries.

Beijing has lashed out at the Dalai Lama's journey and specifically at his expected meeting with Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui, branding both as "splittists" bent on independence from China for Taiwan and Tibet.

"Both men are struggling for the same goal: splitting China," Beijing's official China Daily said on Wednesday. "They do not really care about the interests of the people living in Tibet and Taiwan and the fate of the nation."

Analysts say the Dalai Lama's willingness to visit Taiwan reflected a change in his political stance.

The saffron-robed monk had long declined invitations to come because the island's exiled Republic of China government, ousted from the mainland in 1949, still takes the same stand as Beijing that Tibet and Taiwan are both part of China.

The Tibetan leader advocates autonomy for the vast Himalayan region but has stopped short of demanding outright independence from China, which has kept Tibet under tight military, political and cultural control.

"The Dalai Lama has his political aim," said Chang Lin-chen of National Taiwan University. "He wants to use Taiwan to apply pressure on the Chinese communists and force them to hold talks with him. Apparently, he also wants to use the pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan to boost Tibetan independence."

The Dalai Lama, in an interview with Taiwan's United Daily News published on Thursday, said he agreed to visit to thank Lee for Lee's support of his 1993 five-point Tibetan peace plan.

The Tibetan praised Lee as "the first president to have been elected democratically in China's 5,000 year history," hailing him as "a leader with mercy and leniency."

Analysts said Lee appeared to be using the visit to raise Taiwan's international profile at China's expense hoping to establish a right to self-determination.

"In recent years, Lee has intentionally provoked the Chinese communists," said National Taiwan University political scientist Tim Ting. "He has two aims. First is to make the world see the Chinese communists as undemocratic and irrational. The second is to build up Taiwan nationalism."

Lee, like the Dalai Lama, has stopped short of advocating Taiwan's independence from China, but says reunification, still advocated by his ruling Nationalist Party, is impossible before China undergoes democratic reform.

Chengchi University political analyst Milton Yeh said Lee was exploiting China's preoccupation with other matters, among them U.S. Vice President Al Gore's March 24-26 Beijing visit.

"The timing is crucial," said Yeh. "Taipei sees a window of opportunity while China is grappling with Hong Kong's return and the Communist Party succession. Aside from a strong vocal response, they expect Beijing will do nothing."

The Dalai Lama's itinerary takes him first to the cradle of Taiwan's independence movement, the southern port of Kaohsiung, prompting some observers to suspect he was aiding the independence-minded opposition Democratic Progressive Party.

Democratic Progressives have demanded that Taiwan treat the Dalai Lama as a state guest, a strategy that would bolster their view that Taiwan, and perhaps Tibet as well, are states in their own right not subjects of Beijing.

Taiwan's government has baulked, saying that since Tibet is part of the Republic of China, the Dalai Lama must be regarded as a local citizen a position likely to anger the Dalai Lama himself as much as Beijing.