China said on Monday it was strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama attending a Buddhist conference supported by the Indian culture ministry.
Speaking at a regular briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that India had disregarded China's strong opposition to the visit, which took place over the weekend.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso wasn’t too happy about China either. The exiled spiritual leader said:
Unfortunately, the Chinese hardliners consider me as troublemaker. But general Chinese public is very positive. People’s Republic of China is authoritarian
Indian lawmaker, Shashi Tharoor defended Dalai Lama’s invitation to the conference and said that China’s point of view is irrelevant.
We are not recognising Dalai Lama as political leader, but we do recognise him as a spiritual leader. We feel he is one of the great figures of world Budhism as the leader of Tibetan Budhists. On the question of calling a great Budhist leader to a conference what has China got to say about the matter? From our point of view, China is completely irrelavent. If we want to invite him, that is our privilege.Shashi Tharoor, MP, Lok Sabha
Video Editor: Vivek Gupta
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)