China says Dalai Lama manipulating foreign opinion
BEIJING (Reuters) - China lashed out at the Dalai Lama again on Monday, accusing Tibet's exiled spiritual leader of manipulating opinion and governments in the West, just days after offering talks with his aides.
China has blamed the exiled Buddhist leader's "clique" for unrest across Lhasa and other Tibetan areas, which it says was aimed at upstaging the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
But after an international diplomatic chorus urging dialogue with the Dalai Lama, Beijing abruptly announced on Friday that it intended to meet his aides in the next few days. China's barrage of criticism has continued, however.
"After five decades of life in exile, the Dalai clique has learned how to cater to the West by flaunting human rights, peace, environment protection and culture, among others," the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.
"But they never say a single word about the inhuman serfdom in Tibet under their rule," it said.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama is deceiving foreigners when he tells them he did not plot last month's unrest in Tibetan capital Lhasa, and that he supports the Beijing Olympics, Xinhua said.
"Some rioters who surrendered themselves to police confessed that the Dalai clique is the mastermind of the riots in Lhasa," it added.
"The fact that the Dalai clique has kept its 'government in exile and Tibetan separatists disrupted the Olympic torch relay only shows the Dalai clique's claims about not seeking Tibet independence and supporting the Beijing Olympics are nothing but pure lies."
Pro-Tibet demonstrators have dogged the global leg of the Olympic torch relay, each time promoting angry reactions from Beijing.
The latest invective from China suggests the government is not prepared to give ground in talks proposed for coming days.
There have been six rounds of dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys since 2002 with no breakthroughs.
Tibet's government-in-exile said earlier that it wanted the dialogue but also wanted China to end "vilification" of the Dalai Lama.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by John Chalmers)
