Dharamsala, August 28 – China yesterday denounced Taiwanese president Ma Ying – jeou’s decision to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan, according to the state run news agency Xinhua which said the mainland “resolutely opposes” the proposed visit of the Dalai Lama to Taiwan “in whatever form and capacity.”
“The Dalai Lama is not a pure religious figure,” Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office as saying.
“Under the pretext of religion, he has all along been engaged in separatist activities,” the spokesman said.
China called the visit “an attempt to sabotage the hard-earned good” relations between mainland and Taiwan. “Obviously this is not for the sake of disaster relief. It’s an attempt to sabotage the hard-earned good situation in cross-Strait relations,” he said.
“When people from all sectors on the mainland are lending a hand to help Taiwan reconstruct and overcome the typhoon disaster quickly, some DPP members have taken the chance to plot the Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan,” he said.
Taiwanese president Ma Ying –jeou said he was approving the Dalai Lama’s visit because it could help ease pain after Typhoon Morakot, the storm that struck Taiwan earlier this month and killed an estimated 670 people, according to the AP.
After concluding Ladakh tour on August 29, His Holiness will head for Taiwan where leaders of seven municipalities hit by Typhoon Morakot have invited him to console the victims and their families. His Holiness will be in Taiwan from 31 August- 3 September during which he will deliver speeches and visit the areas affected by the Typhoon.
His Holiness’s last two visits to the island in March 1997 and April 2001 were during the rule of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), that held a more antagonistic view towards China than the ruling Kuomintang government with a more friendly approach.
