The Dalai Lama Visits Taiwan, Despite China's Protests

The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhist leader, is visiting Taiwan to provide spiritual comfort to those affected by the Typhoon Morakot, which killed over 550 with over 106 missing since early August. The current Dalai Lama is the fourteenth in the line of spiritual succession to the office as spiritual and formerly political leader of Tibet; Tenzin Gyatso. as he was named at birth, is the leader of the Tibetan government in exile in India.

China opposes the Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan, as it does his visits to any country, saying that he is using his religion as a pretext for political activity, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The Dalai Lama came to Taiwan at the invitation of seven mayors.

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, his popularity at an all-time low, due to government failures in handling rescue and salvage operations after the typhoon, has accepted the visit by the Dalai Lama, although it may negatively impact his country's ties with China. To minimize such negative effects, President Ma and the Dalai Lama will not meet, to emphasized the humanitarian and religious nature of the Dalai Lama's visit. Following a policy of economic and political rapprochement with China,

Ma places his hopes for economic recovery in the negotiations on a sort of free trade agreement with China, which wants to regain the initiative in its relationship with Taiwan, after the symbolic delivery of helicopters from the United States to cooperate in rescue operations after the typhoon.

Ye Xiaowen, director of the Administration of Religious Affairs of China, has described the Dalai Lama's visit as "a human disaster." The Dalai Lama's representative in Taiwan has responded that the human disaster most feared by the people Taiwan is Chinese violence.

The Dalai Lama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, who was exiled in 1959 after a failed political uprising in Tibet against Chinese control, has previously visited Taiwan in 1997 and 2001. He has avoided talking about Tibet, but he has said that he is promoting democracy.

His visit is especially troubling for Beijing because the visit emphasizes two of China's territorial claims, Taiwan and Tibet. Taiwan has maintained an autonomous government since 1949 when the nationalist party established its government independent of the Communist Party. After a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama went into exile in India and has continued to call for self-determination for the region.

After leading prayer in one of the villages most affected by the typhoon, the Dalai Lama emphasized that his trip is not political in nature. "You are enjoying democracy and ought to preserve it," he said. "I myself am devoted to the promotion of democracy."

Since announcement of the visit, Beijing has criticized Taiwan's opposition party, rather than President Ma who, with the ruling party, who has a good relationship with China, saying that the Taiwanese opposition party has sympathized with "separatist" programs in Taiwan similar to those that China claims the Dalai Lama encourages in Tibet.

China apparently is hinting that the visit of the Dalai Lama could increase tension in both Taiwan and Tibet. His visit has also been criticized by people who Taiwan who want for their country to reunify with China. Demonstrators met the Dalai Lama at the airport demanding that he go home, and there were more protesters at the doorway of the hotel where he is staying.

Once again, the Dalai Lama, a man who refers to himself as "a simple Buddhist monk," finds himself in a morass of politics and ethics for which there is no simple solution.

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