NEW DELHI – When Donald Trump was elected in November, the Dalai Lama said he was keen to meet the incoming US president, but since then, Trump has cozied up to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, making it less likely the man Beijing deems a separatist will get an invite to the White House anytime soon.
The United States has long recognised Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China, and does not back Tibetan independence. But that has not deterred all the recent US presidents before Trump from meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
The United States is widely seen as the last major Western power that has held meetings with the Dalai Lama, despite Beijing’s objections that such encounters foment separatism.
In past meetings, the US had consistently voiced support for the protection of the human rights of Tibetans in China, and called for formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama and his representatives. At a regular press briefing at Beijing on Friday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, reiterated that China resolutely opposes any foreign country allowing the Dalai Lama to visit, or any foreign official having any form of exchange with him.
He did not say whether China had specifically requested Trump not to meet the Dalai Lama.
A US state department spokeswoman and a White House official referred Reuters to the Dalai Lama’s office when asked whether the Tibetan spiritual leader and his representatives had asked for a meeting with Trump, and whether any such meetings were planned.
“His holiness was supposed to go (to the US) in April, but it was postponed,” Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, told Reuters.
That trip has been delayed until June due to a hectic schedule in the preceding months that had left the Dalai Lama physically exhausted, Sangay said, adding that Washington DC would not be part of the June itinerary.
The office of the Dalai Lama has not reached out to Trump to arrange a meeting yet, he said.
The Dalai Lama is taking a more considered approach with regard to any meeting with Trump, said a source with knowledge of the thinking of the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
The unpredictable US president upset protocol in December when weeks before being sworn into office, he took a telephone call from the leader of self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, only to last week rebuff Taiwanese suggestions of another call.
In the interim, Trump has met and phoned Xi, and says he has built a strong relationship with the Chinese leader.
– Nampa-Reuters
