All-party delegation to meet Dalai Lama
Spokesman for Beijing’s embassy warns that group of MPs and senators risks undermining Chinese-Canadian relations with Michigan trip
BILL CURRY
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
April 16, 2008 at 4:13 AM EDT
OTTAWA — A group of MPs and senators will meet the Dalai Lama on Friday at the University of Michigan – including one of the most public critics of China in the Conservative caucus.
Rob Anders, a Calgary MP who is taking part in the trip, crashed a Chinese New Year’s event on Parliament Hill eight years ago wearing a Free Tibet T-shirt.
When the Dalai Lama came to Ottawa in 2004, Mr. Anders was one of the first parliamentarians to greet him.
But the trip by the Canadian Parliamentary Friends of Tibet and Mr. Anders’s participation comes at a particularly sensitive time. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa has increased its criticism of the Dalai Lama, while Chinese treatment of the Dalai Lama’s supporters in Tibet is attracting worldwide attention heading into the 2008 Olympics.
Yuzhen Tian, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Canada, warned yesterday that MPs and senators would be undermining Chinese-Canadian relations if they support “anti-China separatist forces.”
“They should refrain from doing things that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and undermine bilateral relations,” he said.
Mr. Tian repeated China’s assertion that the Dalai Lama is a political exile seeking to undermine China’s national unity.
When asked about the participation of Mr. Anders in the trip, Mr. Tian said, “We are opposed to any person to use the Tibet issue to interfere in China’s internal affairs and undermine China-Canada relations.”
Mr. Anders was travelling yesterday and could not be reached. But in the Commons, Conservatives continued to raise issues of human rights in China.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has been criticizing Ontario provincial Liberals of late, accusing them of not doing enough to raise human rights during a recent trip to China.
“This government is interested in promoting human rights and we continue to encourage dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama and the full respect of all human rights,” Mr. Nicholson said yesterday in response to a question from a Conservative MP.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier was not in the House yesterday, but his office noted the trip to the Ann Arbor university is not being organized by the government and members of all political parties are going.
In addition to Mr. Anders, the delegation will include Conservative Senator Consiglio Di Nino, Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff, Liberal Senator Mobina Jaffer, Bloc Québécois MP Diane Bourgeois and Ontario provincial New Democrat Cheri DiNovo. NDP MP Peggy Nash is also scheduled to attend, but is expected to decline due to a personal matter.
Mr. Boshcoff said yesterday the trip is to encourage understanding.
“The Dalai Lama has always said that he is not against China. And I think we really need to make that understood,” he said. “If their goal is self-identity as a nation, I mean, right here in Canada we have a very similar question and we manage to get along quite well.”
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