China, angered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, said yesterday the burden for repairing relations lay with France.
Beijing brands the Dalai Lama a dangerous “splittist” for demanding self-determination for Tibet, and was incensed by Sarkozy’s meeting on Saturday with the 73-year-old Buddhist monk in Poland.
Beijing has said Sarkozy’s act strained its ties with France and the EU, China’s biggest trade partner. He holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) would not specify what steps China hoped Sarkozy’s government would take, but Liu said repeatedly that it was up to Paris and not Beijing to repair ties.
Meanwhile, France was seeking to assuage Chinese feelings and hoped to avoid a repetition of the backlash against French goods sparked by pro-Tibetan protests on the streets of Paris earlier this year.
Sarkozy called China “one of the greats of the world,” insisting during a speech about human rights on Monday that he “always thought there was only one China.”
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