VIENTIANE, November 27 – China criticized Russia on Saturday over its decision to give the Dalai Lama a visa, the first Moscow has granted the Tibetan spiritual leader in a decade.
Russia, which has a million Buddhists, said on Friday it would give the Dalai Lama a visa but reassured Beijing it was not supporting his demands for Tibetan autonomy.
“The Dalai is not a common religious personage, but a separatist who engages in splittist activities,” Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told reporters on the sidelines of a southeast Asian leaders meeting in the Laos capital.
“China opposes any country having official contacts with him. We do not condone any country allowing him to use their land to engage in separatist activities or sow discord in China’s relations with any other country,” he said.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, leader of Russia’s Buddhist region of Kalmykia, has invited the Dalai Lama every year since 1996 and threatened to take the government to court, saying its refusal to admit him is a violation of his people’s religious rights.
The Russian foreign ministry has previously refused to grant him a visa, saying it could affect Russo-Chinese relations.
Russia made clear the visa did not imply any recognition of the Dalai Lama’s desire for autonomy for Tibet, which became communist after Chinese troops entered in 1950. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising.
Interfax news agency quoted a source in Kalmykia as saying the Dalai Lama, winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, could arrive in regional capital Elista as early as Monday.
However, the trip might not go ahead at all because of the Dalai Lama’s tight schedule, his spokesman said.
“There are logistic problems, so I can’t confirm that the trip will take place,” he said by phone from the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala, seat of the so-called Tibetan government-in-exile.
He said the Dalai Lama had to leave on the trip as early as Monday but the short-notice meant he could not travel on a commercial airliner and aides were trying to charter a plane.
“He has to be back by Wednesday at least as he has engagements fixed in southern India from Thursday,” the spokesman said. “So if he can’t leave on Monday he won’t go.”
Kalmyk Buddhists have long wanted the Dalai Lama to consecrate a new monastery to replace ones destroyed by the Soviet government, which deported the Kalmyk people to Siberia and Central Asia for allegedly helping the Germans in World War Two.
Russian Buddhists also live in the Siberian regions of Buryatia and Tuva. Ilyumzhinov has said he would expect 100,000 pilgrims to come to Kalmykia to see the Dalai Lama.
Reporting by John Ruwitch, editing by Ed Cropley and Rahul Sharma
