Friday August 28, 2009

Taiwan readies for Dalai Lama visit as China fumes

By Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's president has not ruled out a chance meeting with the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan spiritual leader visits next week, officials said on Friday, a move that would sour the island's recent closer ties with China.

The Dalai Lama looks on during a news conference at a Sino-Tibetan Conference entitled "Finding Common Ground" in Geneva in this August 6, 2009 file photo. (REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/Files)

Beijing brands the India-based Dalai Lama as a separatist and has lashed out at Taiwan's opposition, which invited the Dalai Lama subject to President Ma Ying-jeou's approval.

China's reaction is also seen as a blow to Ma, elected in 2008 pledged to improve relations with Beijing, but only in the short-term.

Neither side has discounted the possibility of a chance encounter during the Dalai's Sunday-Friday visit to comfort victims of deadly Typhoon Morakot, the island's worst storm in 50 years.

"If both Ma and the Dalai Lama are in the same place and whether they bump heads, that's something we can't anticipate," said Eddie Tsai, public affairs director-general with the presidential office, which approved the visit on Wednesday.

Analysts said allowing the visit to the predominantly Buddhist island was a populist move by Ma at a time when he has come under fire over a perceived slow response to the typhoon.

Ma is touring the six-county southern Taiwan disaster area, where 650 people were feared killed by the Aug. 7-9 storm. The Dalai Lama will visit the same areas and preside over a mass memorial, his office said.

"Ma will want to appear like he's in charge," said Raymond Wu, a Taipei-based political risk consultant. "So how will the Dalai Lama be received? As a head of state?"

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists (KMT) fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

TRADE TIES, REDUCED TENSION

Since taking office, Ma's KMT administration has avoided actions that could anger Beijing as he pursues landmark trade ties and reduced military tension.

"At this crucial time when cross-Strait relations have been warming, (Taiwan's opposition) have really racked their brains in inviting this robe-wearing politician who engages in separatism," said the Global Times, a popular Chinese tabloid, following an official condemnation from Beijing on Thursday.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

If Ma avoids the visitor, Beijing will cool down to avoid playing into the hands of Taiwan's anti-China opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), analysts say. Otherwise, tensions could escalate.

"If there were a meeting, it would be very hard for the KMT to explain that," said Lin Chong-pin, a strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.

Taiwan allowed visits by the Dalai Lama in 1997 and 2001. Ma last year held up another visit, saying the timing was wrong.

But the Dalai Lama's trip next week could do more for the opposition party, which is seen as having manoeuvred Ma into taking a popular decision against his will and gets political mileage when China criticises it.

"China's the one politicising it. We're not going to respond to that," said DPP international affairs director Hsiao Bi-khim.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing)

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