Dharamsala, May 19 – Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama has declined an invitation from the Taiwanese President to visit the island to avoid damaging relations with China, an official said on Monday.
“The Dalai Lama expressed his inconvenience to visit Taiwan, keeping in view of the renewed relations between him and Beijing,” said Weng Su Own, an official of the Taiwan Tibet Exchange Foundation.
A four-member team, including two envoys of the Dalai Lama visited Beijing and the Tibetan capital Lhasa last September, to ease a decade-long standoff between the two sides.
However, the Dalai Lama expressed his desire to visit Taiwan in the future.
“The Dalai Lama said that if he did visit Taiwan in the future, he will be visiting there for religious purposes only,” Weng said.
“The Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan at this point of time might send wrong signal to the Chinese leadership. I think this is a right decision by the Dalai Lama,” said Tenzin Namgyal, editor of the Tibetan Bulletin, official journal of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
The Dalai Lama first visited Taiwan in 1997 and for the second time in 2001.
Since fleeing Tibet in 1959, the Dalai Lama has established a government-in-exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala.
China, which has occupied Tibet since 1951, has been accused of trying to wipe out its Buddhist-based culture through political and religious repression and a flood of ethnic Chinese immigration.
