Dalai Lama visit angers China
The Dalai Lama blesses well-wishers on his arrival
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has begun a controversial visit to the island of Taiwan.
A crowd of several hundred was at Chiang Kai-Shek to greet him. They included Tibetan nuns and monks in their purple and saffron robes, and some had come from as far as the United States.
There was a line of policemen armed with wooden truncheons to separate the Dalai Lama's supporters from a group of Taiwanese who favour reunification with China.
The trip is being described as a religious one, but it has already angered China, which views both Taiwan and Tibet as its own territory.
The Tibetan spiritual leader plans to spend much of his time teaching and holding religious ceremonies, although meetings are planned with Taiwan's current president, Chen Shui-bian, and the former president, Lee Teng-hui.
Describing the visit as political, Beijing accused the Dalai Lama and the Taiwanese authorities of collusion to "split the motherland".
The Dalai Lama had delayed his trip when he thought talks with Beijing might have been a possibility, but he decided to go ahead once those talks failed to materialise.
The exiled leader is visiting the island at the invitation of its Buddhist association.
Taiwan's government spokesman, Su Cheng-Ping, said the Dalai Lama would uplift Taiwan's religious spirit and promote traditional Tibetan culture.
Doomed plan
But a front-page article in the official China's People's Daily newspaper rejected this, saying the visit was political in nature.
"No matter what excuses the Taiwan authorities use to invite the Dalai Lama, or whatever the form or status of the Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan, they cannot cover up their political motives to deepen their collusion," the article said.
The paper warned that "any words or deeds which aim to separate the motherland will be firmly opposed by all the Chinese people," adding that they were doomed to fail.
The BBC's Taiwan correspondent Damian Grammaticas says Beijing is strident in its belief that both Tibet and Taiwan are indivisible parts of China and does all it can to isolate both the Dalai Lama and Taiwan's government internationally.
'Nothing to fear'
Both Taiwan and Tibet's government in exile insist the exchange is purely religious and does not mean that they are making any form of political alliance, merely that they wish for each other's support and friendship.
Before setting off for Taiwan, the Dalai Lama said China had nothing to fear from his presence in Taiwan.
This is Dalai Lama's second visit to Taiwan -
the first was in 1997.
-- Anonymous, March 31, 2001