China Says Delhi 'Insisted' On Dalai Lama At Rashtrapati Bhavan

BEIJING: China has strongly objected to exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama meeting President Pranab Mukherjee, stating that India has ignored its reservations.

The President hosted the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace laureates at a conference on children's rights at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday. " His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a respected and revered spiritual leader.  It was a non-political event  organised by Nobel laureates dedicated to the welfare of children," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

The Indian government had ignored China's "strong opposition and insisted" on arranging for the Dalai Lama to share the stage with the President, and meet him, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in the Chinese capital.

"China is strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed to this," he said, adding that the Dalai Lama used the guise of religion to engage in separatist activities and China opposed any form of official contacts with him.

China wanted India to recognise the "anti-China, separatist essence of the Dalai Lama clique and take steps to banish the negative impact of this incident" to avoid disrupting ties between Beijing and Delhi, the spokesman  said.

While the Dalai Lama has had private meetings with Indian leaders, Sunday's conference was a rare large public event, said the political head of the Tibetan government in exile based in the hill town of Dharamsala.

"There are many European governments shying away from hosting His Holiness," he told Reuters. "Here you have the president of India hosting His Holiness. I think is a powerful message to the world, and particularly to Beijing."

The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

In October, China objected to the US Ambassador Richard Verma visiting Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as disputed territory.  India responded that the visit was nothing unusual and emphasized that the border state is an integral part of the country.