US lawmakers meet Dalai Lama in India, drawing sharp criticism from China

A group of senior US lawmakers, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, have met with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile in India, sparking heavy criticism from China.

The bipartisan group of US lawmakers, led by Congressman Michael McCaul and Pelosi, visited the 88-year-old Buddhist spiritual leader at his home base in the northern Indian hill-town of Dharamsala on Wednesday.

Pelosi told crowds of Tibetans it was an "honour" to have met with the Dalai Lama, in a speech carried by the government-in-exile's Tibet TV.

The visit follows the passage of a bill by the US Congress that seeks to encourage Beijing to hold talks with Tibetan leaders, which have been frozen since 2010.

"This bill is a message to the Chinese government that we have clarity in our thinking and understanding in the issue of the freedom of Tibet", she said.

Pelosi said the bill was "soon to be signed" by US President Joe Biden.

'Anti-China separatist activities'

Ahead of the visit, China's embassy in New Delhi criticised the meeting, saying the Dalai Lama was "not a pure religious figure, but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion".

Many exiled Tibetans fear Beijing will name a rival successor to the Dalai Lama, bolstering control over a land it poured troops into in 1950.

The Dalai Lama was just 23 when he escaped the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in fear for his life after Chinese soldiers eviscerated an uprising against Beijing's forces, crossing the snowy Himalayas into India.

He stepped down as his people's political head in 2011, passing the baton of secular power to a government chosen democratically by some 130,000 Tibetans around the world.

"The democracy of the diaspora of the Tibetans in exile is very important to us," Pelosi said.

Penpa Tsering, the sikyong or head of that government, said it does not seek full independence for Tibet but rather to pursue a long-standing "Middle Way" policy seeking greater autonomy and "to resolve the Sino-Tibet conflict through dialogue".

But Beijing's embassy accused the Tibetan administration of seeking to break away.

"We urge the US side to fully recognise the anti-China separatist nature of the Dalai group," the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India wrote on social media late on Tuesday.

It reiterated its oft-repeated position that the high-altitude territory "has always been part of China since ancient times".