Merkel angers China on Dalai Lama

By BBC News
September 23, 2007

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on Sunday in talks that have angered China.

Chinese officials have cancelled planned talks with German counterparts in Munich on legal and patent issues.

Germany says the meeting with the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising, is a private exchange.

But China, which governs Tibet, says the meeting is part of the Dalai Lama's agenda for Tibetan independence.

'Conscious' decision

Sunday's meeting will be the first time the Dalai Lama has been received at the chancellery.

China has already summoned the German ambassador in Beijing to complain.

However, German deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg said: "The meeting will take place, the invitation stands, and the chancellor also extended the invitation very consciously."

The German justice ministry said the legal talks had been cancelled for "technical reasons".

The Dalai Lama told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Beijing was showing the "arrogance of power".

"Wherever I go, China protests. The Chinese are simply testing how far they can go," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said.