BEIJING (The New York Times) — A senior Chinese official on Tuesday warned that relations between the United States and China could be damaged if President Obama meets with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans whom China considers to be a dangerous separatist, according to a report in Xinhua, the state news agency.

The official, Zhu Weiqun, said if a country’s leaders meet with the Dalai Lama “we will take necessary measures to help them realize” the possible harm, he said, without giving further details. Mr. Zhu is the executive deputy minister of the United Front Work Department, the arm of the Chinese Communist Party that officially manages ethnic policy.
Any move by American leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama will “harm others but bring no profit to itself either,” Mr. Zhu said. He added: “If the U.S. leader chooses this time to meet the Dalai Lama, that would damage trust and cooperation between our two countries, and how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?”
White House officials have said Mr. Obama plans to meet with the Dalai Lama early this year. Last fall, when the Dalai Lama visited the United States, Mr. Obama declined to meet with him to avoid angering China before Mr. Obama’s first trip to Beijing, in November. Both Mr. Obama and the Dalai Lama are Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Mr. Zhu, the executive vice director of the United Front Work Department, the arm of the Chinese Communist Party that officially manages ethnic policy, made his remarks at a morning press conference that was held to give details on recent negotiations between the Chinese government and envoys of the Dalai Lama.
Despite Mr. Obama’s earlier overtures to Beijing, tensions between the United States and China have been on the rise.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently chastised China in a speech in which she decried Internet censorship. Last Friday, the U.S. announced $6.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, which China considers a rebel province. In response, China said it would break off military-to-military ties with the United Stats and bring sanctions against the American companies that make the arms.
China usually criticizes prominent figures who meet with the Dalai Lama. In late 2008, Beijing protested a meeting between the Dalai Lama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, hinting it would bring economic sanctions against France, although those never materialized.
China considers sovereignty issues like the status of Tibet and Taiwan to be among what officials call the nation’s “core interests,” and few things anger the Chinese government more than the intervention by foreign countries in these issues.
Tibet has long been a thorny foreign policy issue for the Chinese Communist Party, but became even more so after a widespread uprising across Tibetan regions of western China in March 2008.
The Dalai Lama, 74, who lives in India, says he wants genuine autonomy for Tibet, not independence. The latest meeting between his envoys and Chinese officials ended over the weekend. It was the ninth round of talks since 2002, and Chinese officials repeated their strong rejection of the Dalai Lama’s call for Tibetan autonomy.
Mr. Zhu said Tuesday that the Dalai Lama was not a legal representative of the 6 million Tibetans in China, and that China would only discuss with the envoys the status of the Dalai Lama, not the future of Tibet.
photo:Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, speaks to media at Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) south of Patna, India
photo: by AP