How Charles snubbed the Dalai Lama to please China
HE IS said to regard himself as a ‘dissident’, working against the political consensus. But as Prince Charles creeps ever closer to the throne, there are signs he is finally falling into line.
Last week, His Holiness the Dalai Lama completed a nine- day visit to the UK, in which he made whistlestop tours of Westminster, Oxford University and London’s O2 Arena.
Whenever Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader is in town, it is usual for him to stop in for an informal pow-wow with Charles, whom he jokingly referred to as his ‘best friend’ during a meeting at Clarence House in 2012.
Last week, however, I am assured that no such meeting materialised.
Sources say the snub i s almost certainly a diplomatic measure on Charles’s part not to offend Chinese President Xi Jinping — who i s making a state visit to the UK at the end of this month.
China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since Communist troops took over t he r egion in 1950 and regards the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist. As a result, Charles’s chummy relationship with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner remains a huge source of contention.
Charles’s animosity towards the Chinese government is well-documented. In 2005, diary entries made during his 1997 visit to Hong Kong for the handover to China — in which he described the country’s Communist leaders as ‘appalling old waxworks’ — emerged, causing a diplomatic storm.
He was noticeably absent f rom the state visit of the then- Chinese president Hu Jintao in 2005, and was reported to have boycotted a banquet during a 1999 state visit to Britain by Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin.
However, it is understood that he will put aside his old enmity by joining the Queen and Prince Philip in receiving t his month’s Chinese delegation at the Horse Guards Parade and attending the arrival lunch at Buckingham Palace. He is also likely to receive Chinese officials at Clarence House, but is not expected to attend the state banquet at Buckingham Palace to be held in honour of the president. Clarence House declined to comment.