Meet Dalai Lama to prioritise Tibetan issue

Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to meet with the Dalai Lama in a bid to ensure that Tibetans' rights remain high on the agenda, even as it carries more risks on the troubled ties between Washington and Beijing.

Since George H.W. Bush in 1991, every sitting US president has met the Tibetan spiritual leader except Donald Trump as the now 86-year-old Dalai Lama slows down his once frenetic travel schedule.

In similar letters, 38 senators and 27 House members also called on the United States on Tuesday to press Beijing to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives that last took place 12 years ago.

"President Biden can demonstrate the importance of His Holiness' moral message and example by inviting His Holiness to meet in the Oval Office," the Senate letter said.

A focus on Tibet would be a "tangible manifestation of a principled foreign policy that prioritizes human rights and the quest for human dignity," said the letter led by Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Patrick Leahy.

If the Dalai Lama is unable to travel, the senators said Biden should send Vice President Kamala Harris or another senior official to see him in India. China's lack of interest in dialogue has led many observers to believe that Beijing is waiting out the Dalai Lama, hoping that the global movement he has built for greater rights in Tibet will wither away without the leadership of the Buddhist monk turned cultural icon.

The lawmakers encouraged the Biden administration to keep insisting that China not intervene in the selection of the Dalai Lama's reincarnation, amid fears that the officially atheist government will groom a pliant successor.