BEIJING, April 3 (AFP) - The Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan last month was a plot by "separatist forces" opposed to the July handover of Hong Kong to China, the official Army Daily said here Thursday.

"The Dalai Lama and the Taiwanese authorities were reinforcing their complicity under the pretext of religion and culture," the paper said.

"In fact, it was a reaction by separatist forces to the handover of Hong Kong" on July 1, after more than 150 years of British rule in the territory.

"But the secessionist plot is doomed to fail," it added.

The Dalai Lama, who is Tibet's spiritual leader, has lived in exile since the crushing of an anti-Chinese uprising there in 1959. In late March he paid a six-day visit to Taiwan at the invitation of the Buddhist Association.

His visit included meetings with the Taiwanese President Lee Tung-hui and other officials on the island, in a move which sparked fury from Beijing.

China considers Taiwan, where nationalist rebels sought refuge from the communist troops of Mao Zedong in 1949 after a civil war, as a renegade province.