China warns US against supporting Dalai Lama; don’t trust Washington, say experts

Amid the trade war with the US, China has also asked the former to desist from supporting the "Dalai Lama clique" in Tibet in an attempt to reiterate China's sovereignty over Tibet, the country's Global Times cited a home-based expert as saying on Tuesday, May 15.

A team of the National People's Congress comprising legislators from the Tibet Autonomous Region of China concluded a six-day trip of the US on Monday, May 14, with an aim for the same, the expert said.

Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday that the delegation, led by the deputy of the People's Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Baima Wangdui, met a number of US senators and officials of the department of state in Washington DC.

The Chinese delegation told the US members about the importance of a good US-China relationship but also reiterated that Tibet was about China's sovereignty and it is a question of core interest of China, Xinhua added.

Xinhua also said that Wangdui urged the US to recognise the Dalai clique's anti-China nature and avoid any kind of contact with them. It also said the US assured the Chinese delegates that it recognised Tibet as a part of China and would not back "Tibetan independence".

However, not all in China are convinced about the Americans' ploy.

"Although the US said they recognize Tibet as part of China and would not support 'Tibetan independence', they have been meeting the Dalai Lama and in the past have funded the Tibetan 'government-in-exile'," Global Times quoted Qin Yongzhang, an ethnologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.

Qin also said only time could tell whether the latest visit by the Chinese delegation would change America's "double-faced actions", adding that it was important to make clear China's position.

Zhu Weiqun, a former chairman of the ethnic and religious committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told Global Times that Washington recently approved "a new batch of funding to support the Dalai Lama, even more than the sum back in the Obama days" and said he didn't find any reason to believe the current Donald Trump administration of the US would be any different in supporting the Dalai clique compared to the earlier administrations.