China opposes Parisian award of honorary citizenship to Dalai Lama

BEIJING—China on Tuesday expressed its strong discontent and resolute opposition to Paris city council awarding the Dalai Lama honorary citizenship of the city.
“This act grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs and severely infringes on Sino-French relations, as well as the existing friendly relations between Beijing and Paris in particular,” said Jiang Yu, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, at a press conference. Paris city council voted on Monday to award honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama, a proposal tabled by Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.
Jiang said Tibet is an inalienable part of China, and a purely internal Chinese affair. “China is strongly against any nation or individual using the Dalai Lama issue to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.
She added that the Dalai Lama’s wordings and actions over the past decades demonstrated he is not really a religious figure, but a political exile engaged in the separatist activities under the disguise of the religion. The Dalai clique is the organizer, plotter and instigator of the March 14 violence in Lhasa and other areas of the country, she said.
Recently, Jiang said, some French people and media, regardless of the reality, have continued to make negative reports and remarks about China. She also said the Olympic torch being attacked in Paris seriously hurt the feeling of the Chinese people and impaired Sino-French relations.
“The Paris city council’s awarding at present will be taken as another severe provocation to 1.3 billion Chinese people including Tibetans, and will further encourage the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan secessionists,” she said.
China urged France to take effective measures to get rid of the bad impact, to stop conniving and supporting the “Tibet independence” secessionist act, to halt interfering in China’s internal affairs so as to safeguard Sino-French relations through actions, she said.
Hundreds of Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals working or studying in the United States gathered in the northeastern state of Michigan Sunday to protest against the crime and violence wire-pulled by the Dalai clique and voiced support for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. The protest, organized by the Chinese students studying at the University of Michigan and the State University of Michigan, was held outside the Ann Arbor stadium where the Dalai Lama was delivering a speech.
The protesters, from teenagers to the grey-haired, all chanted “One World, One Dream” and “Olympics go,” while wielding such slogans as “Politics off Olympics, we want sport” and “We seek peace.” “We overseas Chinese students were infuriated by the violence in Tibet on March 14 and the interruption on the Olympic torch relay wire-pulled by the Dalai clique, so we decided to stage this protest to make our voice heard,” said Chen Jinhui, a student at the University of Michigan and one of the organizers.
Some 10,000 U.S. dollars have been donated online or through checks within one week in support of the protest, according to Chen and other fundraising volunteers. On the self-designed and self-made paperboards, the protestors displayed pictures, diagrams and historical records, which were collected from the Internet, foreign media reports and books written by Chinese and Western scholars, on the facts of Tibet’s history and development, as well as the violence and crime in China’s Lhasa on March 14 and the interruption of Olympics torch relay in Paris and London committed by Tibet separatists.
They also offered detailed introductions and explanations regarding China’s policy on Tibet and contributions to the improvement of the living standard of the Tibetan people. Some talked with local residents and media to address the latter’s questions.—Xinhua