China swipes at McCain over Dalai Lama meeting

BEIJING (AFP) — China warned US presidential candidate John McCain on Monday to stop "supporting and conniving with" the Dalai Lama, saying that meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader hurt Sino-US relations.

The call came after the Republican hopeful met the Dalai Lama on Friday during the latter's visit to the United States, praising him as a "transcendent international role model and hero".

"China is seriously concerned about the report," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said according to a statement on the ministry's website, adding that the Tibet issue was China's domestic affair.

Liu urged Americans to recognise that the Dalai Lama was trying to separate China and was aiming to destroy social stability in the western region "under the cloak of religion".

They should "stop supporting and conniving with the Dalai Lama and the separatist forces for 'Tibet independence,'" a tactic Liu said was damaging Sino-US relations.

McCain has criticised China's record on human rights in Tibet, which was thrown into the international spotlight in March during a crackdown on protests against Chinese rule that began in the region's capital, Lhasa.

The protests spread to other parts of China with Tibetan populations, with the government-in-exile saying 203 Tibetans were killed in the crackdown.

Beijing insists that only one Tibetan was killed, and has in turn accused the "rioters" of killing 21 people.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending troops in to "liberate" the remote Himalayan region.

The Dalai Lama fled his homeland in 1959 following a failed uprising and has since lived in exile in India.

China accuses him of being a separatist, but he insists he does not want independence for Tibet, seeking only greater autonomy for the Himalayan territory as well as an end to religious and cultural repression.