Bush has undermined US-China relations, says Beijing

The US has “gravely undermined” relations with China by giving the Dalai Lama an award, the Beijing government said today.

US president George Bush presented Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader with the US Congress’s highest civilian honour yesterday and urged Chinese leaders to welcome him to Beijing.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said: “The move of the US is a blatant interference with China’s internal affairs, which has severely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and gravely undermined the relations between China and the US.”

He said foreign minister Yang Jiechi had summoned US ambassador Clark T Randt to express “strong protest to the US government”.

China has warned that giving the award to a person it believes is trying to split the country would have serious consequences for relations, but has not said what it would do.

With the Dalai Lama by his side, Mr Bush praised him as a “universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd of the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people”.

Mr Bush said at the US Capitol building, where he personally handed the Dalai Lama the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal: “Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away.”

The Dalai Lama is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, but China reviles him as a Tibetan separatist and has vehemently protested about the elaborate public ceremony for the past week.

The 72-year-old monk and 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate says he wants “real autonomy” for Tibet, not independence.

He is immensely popular in the Himalayan region, which China has ruled with a heavy hand since its communist-led forces invaded in 1951.

He has lived with followers in exile in India since fleeing Chinese soldiers in Tibet in 1959.

Mr Bush said he did not think his attendance at the ceremony would damage relations with China.

“I support religious freedom; he supports religious freedom. ... I want to honour this man,” he told reporters at the White House. “I have consistently told the Chinese that religious freedom is in their nation’s interest.”

But on Tuesday the Bush administration took pains to keep a private meeting with the president and the Dalai Lama from further infuriating China.

Mr Bush wants to ease anger in China, a growing economic and military powerhouse that the US needs to manage nuclear stand-offs with Iran and North Korea.

He also wants to be seen as a champion of religious freedom and human rights.