Published by World Tibet Network News - Monday, March 24, 1997

TAIPEI, March 24 (Reuter) - Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said on Monday his controversial Taiwan visit could narrow the gap between Tibet and China, denying that he sought Tibet's independence or dislikes the Chinese.

"We are not anti-Chinese. I always consider that a close understanding between Tibet and the Chinese is extremely important," the Dalai Lama said in his first news conference since beginning his unprecedented visit to Nationalist-ruled Taiwan on Saturday.

"This visit can be very helpful to remove the feeling of distance between one another," the ochre-robed lama, surrounded by dozens of security guards and Buddhist disciples, told a crowded room in Taipei.

"Although there are some negative expressions from the PRC (People's Republic of China), in the long run, my visit could be positive," the Dalai Lama said.

The Dalai Lama, revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a god-king, said he never sought independence for his Himalayan homeland, although he noted Tibet had existed as an independent country.

"My position is very clear. I am not seeking independence," he said. "I am seeking a genuine self-rule."

Without self-rule, he said, Tibet's Buddhist culture would die.

The 1989 Nobel peace laureate expressed his desire to hold talks with Chinese communist authorities, who have long scorned the Dalai Lama as a Tibetan separatist.

"As soon as some positive indications or responses come from mainland China, I am ready to talk without any precondition," the Dalai Lama said.

He said he understood the vitriolic attacks on his visit issued by China, which has assailed his likely March 27 meeting with President Lee Teng-hui as the collusion of "splittists" bent on independence from China for both Tibet and Taiwan.

"Although I can understand the negative response, unfortunately all of my movements are considered splittist," he said.

"Please...check my activities (to see) whether I am a splittist or not," said the Buddhist monk, who has called his visit strictly religious in nature.

The Dalai Lama tried to play down the political implications of his journey to Taiwan his first return to Chinese territory since he and thousands of followers fled Tibet in 1959 after Beijing crushed an anti-Chinese uprising.

"I don't want this visit to be politicised. If it is too politicised it benefits neither me nor you," he said.

Asked to compare an early 1950s China visit with his current Taiwan trip, Tibet's ranking monk said he was touched by the warm reception from the island's people.

"Of course under the totalitarian system, everything was organised, not necessarily spontaneous," he said of his China experience soon after the 1949 communist takeover.

"(In Taiwan) I saw people in the street, their big smile...I do not think they are organised by the government," he said with a smile, gesturing with his hands and swaying in his seat.

The exiled Republic of China government that has existed only on Taiwan since its 1949 civil war loss of the mainland still maintains that the island should one day reunite with China, although not before Beijing adopts democracy.

But the democracy that has flowered on Taiwan since the late 1980s has given voice to long-suppressed hopes for a sovereign Republic of Taiwan. That angers China, which calls Taiwan a rebel-held region that must "reunify with the motherland."

On Monday, the island's financial market took a 3.49 percent beating on a report that China would mount war games, possibly to protest the Dalai Lama's Taiwan visit.

The Taiwan dollar slumped badly as well, ending at T$27.625 against Saturday's T$27.545 close.