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TAIPEI: Taiwanese media warned Friday that President Ma Ying-jeou risked undermining the government's efforts to improve ties with China by approving a visit by the Dalai Lama.
Ma on Thursday approved the trip by the Tibetan spiritual leader - scheduled for August 30 to September 4 - whom Beijing accuses of trying to split Tibet from China, opposing any foreign contact with him.
"The visit could plunge the already (typhoon) devastated Taiwan into a cross-strait political storm," said the United Daily News in an editorial.
"If Beijing would not leave the matter at that, the adjustments in cross-strait relations in the past year would be wasted."
The Taipei-based China Times said Ma would need to rebuild the hard-won trust with Beijing.
"We can imagine that Beijing is in shock as in return for its massive goodwill (Taiwan allows) the Dalai Lama's visit," it said, referring to China's "national mobilisation" for Taiwan's typhoon relief efforts.
"The Ma government would need to spend more efforts to rebuild trust across the Taiwan Strait."
However, the Liberty Times urged Ma to meet the Dalai Lama in order to stress the sovereignty of the island, which split from China in 1949 after a civil war.
"Taiwan and Tibet both suffer from China's aggression... Ma should not be an accomplice for China's suppression of the Dalai Lama" by avoiding seeing him, it said.
The visit was harshly criticised in Beijing, according to Chinese state media. Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification - by force, if necessary.
"The Dalai Lama is not a pure religious figure," an unnamed spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office said, according to Xinhua news agency.
"Under the pretext of religion, he has all along been engaged in separatist activities."
The Dalai Lama, who made a historic first visit to Taiwan in 1997 and went again in 2001, is expected to visit the south of the island, which was battered by a typhoon two weeks ago which left 543 people dead.
Ma, as mayor of Taipei, met the Tibetan spiritual leader on his previous visits, although his office declined to comment if they would meet again this time.
Ma has been working to improve cross-strait relations and has moved to boost trade and tourism with China after eight years of strained ties under the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.
The Dalai Lama was invited by seven mayors and local government chiefs from the DPP.
The Tibetan spiritual leader and his exiled government have been based in Dharamshala, in northern India, since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
- AFP/yb
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