Downing Street Says

Asked about the Prime Minister meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) replied that as the Prime Minister said in PMQs earlier today, he spoke to the Chinese Prime Minister Mr Wen this morning. As we had been saying earlier in the week we had been speaking to both the Chinese Embassy in London and our Embassy had been speaking to the Chinese Government in Beijing on a daily basis since the trouble broke out in Tibet towards the end of last week. As the Prime Minister said, Mr Wen reiterated the commitment he had made to dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama as long as the Dalai Lama was clear that he respected that Tibet was part of China, and that he did not condone violence – and the Dalai Lama agreed with both of those two points. So in principle we think that there is a possibility of a resumption of dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama, which is something that we and the rest of the world would like to see.

Asked if the Prime Minister told Premier Wen that he would be meeting the Dalai Lama and what was the response, the PMS replied that it was for the Chinese to speak on behalf of Premier Wen, but the Prime Minsiter did say to the Chinese Prime Minister that he would be meeting the Dalai Lama.

Put that when Chancellor Merkel met with the Dalai Lama, there was a freezing in relations between Germany and China and were we not concerned that similar would happen, the PMS replied that we had a good and constructive relationship with China, and we hoped that this good and constructive relationship would enable both sides to raise difficult issues.

Asked if the Dalai Lama would be met as the leader of Tibet, or as a spiritual leader, the PMS replied that he would be met as a spiritual leader.

Put that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary had both visited China recently, and asked if it was right to assume that Britain was now able to exert considerable influence on China having built up such good relations, the PMS replied that we wanted a good and constructive relationship with China. The Prime Minister attached a great deal of importance to his visit to China because of the importance that he attached to the bilateral relationship with China. But as part of that of course we would be prepared to raise difficult issues as appropriate, in a mature way.

Asked what changed the Prime Minister’s position on meeting the Dalai Lama, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary’s view was that the priority during this period of tension in Tibet was to ensure that we kept all of the focus on urging restraint on both sides so that a peaceful resolution could be found. We had been in discussion with the Chinese, the Prime Minister had spoken to the Chinese Prime Minister, and in light of those developments the Prime Minister now felt that it was the right time to confirm that he would be meeting the Dalai Lama.

Asked if we accepted that Prime Minister Wen has said that he did not accept that Dalai Lama thinks that Tibet should be a part of China, the PMS replied that as Wen Jiabao said in his press conference as recently as the 18th March, the door of dialogue was still open to the Dalai Lama so long as he gives up the position of Tibet’s independence and so long as he recognised Tibet and Taiwan as inalienable of the Chinese territory. The Dalai Lama had also said that he was not calling for an independent Tibet, so we think the conditions are in place for a resumption of dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama and his representatives, and this was something that we would like to see.

Asked if we now agreed with the French Foreign Secretary that there was now a case for not attending the Olympic opening ceremony, the PMS replied that our position in relation to the Olympics had not changed, and we did not support a boycott of the Olympics.

Asked when the Dalai Lama would be coming to London, the PMS replied that he thought this would be in early May.

Asked if it was still the Prime Minister’s plan to attend the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the PMS replied that this was correct.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Tibet

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries