Dalai Lama visit hurts China-EU ties

Beijing says nation’s ‘core interests’ ignored, parliamentary actions deemed ‘irresponsible’

China said the recent meeting of leaders of the European Parliament with the Dalai Lama has damaged China’s core interests and severely impaired the political basis of interparliamentary exchanges between China and the European Union.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang made the remarks onMonday, after the Dalai Lama visited the European Parliament and met with its president, Martin Schulz, and its foreign affairs committee chair, Elmar Brok, on Thursday.

“China resolutely opposes the wrong behavior by the European Parliament. It’s impossible China will stay unmoved over such behavior,” Lu said at a daily news conference, responding to a request to confirm reports that China has postponed a visit by European Parliament members to the country after the incident.

That Schulz and Brok insisted on the meeting “regardless of China’s strong opposition” has breached the European Union’s stance on issues concerning the Tibet autonomous region as well as promises it has made to China, Lu said.

Lu did not comment specifically on the veracity of a report from Politico, quoting Parliament spokesman Jaume Duch Guillot as saying the visit had been postponed.

After fleeing to India in 1959 after a failed riot, the Dalai Lama has been seeking to split Tibet from China, including by attracting international intervention.

“The Chinese government resolutely stands against national splittism. It resolutely opposes ringleaders of the Dalai Lama clique engaging in anti-China activities and activities aiming to split China in any country or organization under any identity or name. It also opposes officials of any country or organization conducting any form of contact with them,” Lu said.

Interparliamentary exchanges between the two were enjoying good momentum as ties between China and the EU are entering a phase of rapid development, he said, adding that China hopes Europe and the people concerned will change course and take effective measures to eliminate negative influences imposed by the incident.

Cui Hongjian, director of the Department for European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said the meeting with the Dalai Lama is “irresponsible” and goes against the principles of China-EU exchanges, which are to stick to the oneChina policy and to respect each other’s core interests.

The meeting shows that China-EU ties “are experiencing some twists and turns” this year, Cui said, citing the European Parliament’s resolution on China’s market economy status earlier this year as another example. The Parliament adopted a resolution asking the European Commission not to grant market economy status to China.

Wang Yiwei, an expert on European studies at Renmin University of China, said the European Parliament leadership’s meeting falls out of line with the good momentum of China-EU ties in recent years.

“It’s certain that we will have a reaction over this incident. We will not tolerate this wrong act just because China-EU ties are developing,” Wang said.