Bush Meets Dalai Lama, Signaling U.S. Concern Over Rights in Tibet

President Bush met Tuesday night with the Dalai Lama--the first time an American President has received the exiled Tibetan religious leader--in a surprise session that underlined U.S. displeasure with Chinese suppression of Tibetans.

The White House meeting took place despite repeated Chinese objections. It signaled a shift from the Administration’s position two years ago, when Bush declined to receive the spiritual leader of the 6 million Tibetan Buddhists.

A senior Administration official said the meeting “reflected the President’s respect for a revered religious figure . . . and continuing concerns in this country about human rights problems in China, including in Tibet.” But the official said the meeting did not signify a change in the Administration’s view that Tibet is part of China.

The Dalai Lama, 55, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has urged the United States to help the Tibetans’ struggle for independence.

Chinese officials consider any official contact with the Dalai Lama to be meddling in their country’s internal affairs. The religious leader is “an exile who engages in political activities aimed at splitting the motherland,” Song Yuoming, Beijing’s deputy consul general in New York, put it earlier this year.