Soul Knitting: China - Screw What YOU Think About Anything

The Dalai Lama is greeted upon his arrival in Washington, Monday. He will receive the Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony Wednesday.

"Bush to meet with Dalai Lama today --Congressional award and presidential visit angers China (MSNBC)"

"President Bush and Congress will stir Chinese anger this week when they honor the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists.

While the Dalai Lama is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, Beijing reviles the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and claims he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet, where the Dalai Lama is considered a god-king.

China warns that a planned White House meeting Tuesday between Bush and the Dalai Lama and a public ceremony Wednesday to award the spiritual leader the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal are bad for U.S.-Chinese ties.

'People do care about Tibet'
The Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gyari, said images of the U.S. president standing beside the Dalai Lama at the congressional ceremony will send a clear message that "people do care about Tibet. We have not been forgotten."

"I have no doubt this will give tremendous encouragement and hope to the Tibetan people," he told reporters ahead of the visit. It also "sends a powerful message to China that the Dalai Lama is not going to go away."

The Dalai Lama says he wants "real autonomy," not independence, for Tibet. But China demonizes the spiritual leader and believes the United States is honoring a separatist. The Dalai Lama's U.S. visit comes as China holds its important Communist Party congress.

China-U.S. relations
Chinese diplomats have worked doggedly since the U.S. award was voted on last year to get the ceremony and meeting with Bush scrapped and to "correct this mistake," said Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

"We are certainly very much displeasured and regret the fact that the U.S. side would totally ignore the repeated positions of the Chinese side and go ahead with its erroneous decision," Wang said in an interview. "Such moves on the U.S. side are not a good thing for the bilateral relationship."

In Beijing, a government official on Tuesday also criticized the U.S. plans.

"The move will seriously damage China-U.S. relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. Liu did not specify how relations would be damaged if the award does take place.

He told a regular news conference that China hoped the U.S. would "correct its mistakes and cancel relevant arrangements and stop interfering in the internal affairs of China.""