A high-level U.S. congressional delegation, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, traveled to meet with the Dalai Lama at his home in India on Wednesday, a visit that the Chinese government, which considers the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a separatist, had previously condemned.
The delegation, led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, arrived on Tuesday in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has lived since the 1960s, to visit the offices of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is pushing for autonomy for Tibet within China.
The trip came days after the U.S. Congress passed a bill with bipartisan support urging China to engage in dialogue with exiled Tibetan leaders to find a solution to the long-running conflict.
The visit was met with predictable criticism from China, whose leaders consider the government-in-exile illegitimate and view any support for the cause of Tibetan autonomy as interference in China’s internal affairs.
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The Chinese Embassy in India issued a statement on Tuesday night saying: “We urge the US to fully recognize the anti-China and separatist nature of the Dalai Lama group, fulfill its commitments to China on the Tibet issue, and stop sending wrong signals to the world.”
U.S. officials frequently meet with the 88-year-old Dalai Lama. However, Pelosi’s presence in the delegationIt was reminiscent of her 2022 visit to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its territory, when she was House speaker.
The controversial trip, which prompted a sharp response from China, including trade restrictions on Taiwan and military exercises near the island, has raised concerns within the Biden administration that it will further sour already frosty relations with Beijing.
The visit to India also comes as Washington and New Delhi deepen ties, in part because both sides see China as a huge threat. President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is holding multiple rounds of talks with Indian officials in New Delhi this week on expanding defense and technology cooperation.
The wide-ranging discussions, which come weeks after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a third term in office, show how seriously Washington values its relationship with India, with U.S. officials increasingly viewing New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.
Tenzin Lekhai, spokesman for the Central Tibetan Administration in exile, said the situation in Tibet should not be viewed through the “lens of growing competition between the United States and China” but rather as a reminder that the Tibetan way of life “faces an existential threat” due to China’s assimilation of the region.
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“We do hope that the leaders of the free world will support the Tibetan cause and especially urge the Chinese leaders to restart dialogue to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict,” he said.