Republican congressman Michael McCaul is anticipated to steer a bipartisan US congressional delegation to India within the coming days, the place he and different lawmakers, together with Democratic former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plan to fulfill Tibetan religious chief the Dalai Lama.
McCaul, Pelosi and a gaggle of different US lawmakers will go to Dharamsala – the city within the northern Indian Himalayas the place the 88-year-old Tibetan monk lives in exile – on June 18 and 19, an official of the Tibetan authorities in-exile, referred to as the Central Tibetan Administration, advised Reuters.
The assembly comes days forward of a deliberate journey by the Dalai Lama to the US to endure medical remedy for his knees, however it’s unclear whether or not he can have any engagements throughout that point.
US lawmakers have commonly visited Dharamsala and touted the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama’s work to attract world help for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his distant, mountainous homeland. China considers him a harmful separatist.
US International Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. Photograph: Reuters
The lawmakers’ journey is prone to coincide with a separate go to to India by prime Biden administration officers, together with Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who’ve sought to spice up US-India ties amid Washington’s rising rivalry with Beijing.
McCaul’s workplace didn’t reply instantly to a request for remark. Pelosi’s workplace stated it couldn’t verify or deny any coming journey due to long-standing safety insurance policies.
Spokespersons for the US State Division and the White Home Nationwide Safety Council didn’t instantly reply when requested about Sullivan and Campbell’s journey and whether or not they deliberate to fulfill the Dalai Lama, or whether or not US President Joe Biden or different US officers would meet him within the United States.
The Dalai Lama has met US officers, together with US presidents, throughout earlier visits to the USA, however Biden has not met him since taking workplace in 2021.
As a candidate in 2020, Biden criticised Donald Trump for being the one president in three a long time who had not met or spoken to the Tibetan religious chief, calling it “disgraceful”.
Any such engagement would doubtless anger Beijing at a time when the US and China have sought to stabilise rocky ties.
The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed rebellion towards Chinese language rule in Tibet. Chinese language officers chafe at any interplay he has with officers from different nations.
Final week, China’s US embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu stated Beijing “firmly opposes any anti-China separatist actions carried out by Dalai in any capability or title in any nation, and opposes any types of contact by officers of any nation with him”.
