Dalai Lama visit to disputed Indian state
November 8, 2009 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
Dalai Lama visit to disputed Indian state,The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader, began on Sunday a week-long visit to a remote Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh also claimed by China in a trip that has renewed tensions between the Asian giants struggling to settle an old border dispute.
Beijing sees the visit as encouraging the Tibetan struggle by undermining Chinese territorial integrity and has slammed it as the Dalai Lama’s “scheme to wreck China’s relations” with India. But the Tibetan leader says it is merely a spiritual lecture tour.
The Dalai Lama arrived by helicopter in the remote Buddhist enclave nestled in the icy folds of the eastern Himalayas which he had passed through to flee Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese rule.
Beijing calls the Dalai Lama a dangerous “splittist” plotting Tibetan independence, a charge he denies. He says he is merely seeking autonomy for Tibet.
Tawang, in Arunachal Pradesh state, the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and part of territory Beijing considers as “southern” Tibet, is at the heart of the border row. But for the moment the people of Tawang want to forget the politics in the presence of their spiritual master.
China lays claim to 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) of land on the eastern sector of the border. India says China occupies 38,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of territory in Aksai Chin plateau.
Dalai Lama visit to disputed Indian state was first posted on November 8, 2009 at 8:59 pm.
