Nancy Pelosi traveled to Tibet with U.S. delegation

BEIJING, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Nancy Pelosi, who meditated alongside the Dalai Lama in July, was granted permission to visit Tibet this week, China's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The House minority leader made the unprecedented trip to China's Tibet Autonomous Region and met with the territory's Communist Party chief, The New York Times reported.

Hong Lei, the ministry's spokesman, said Pelosi and a U.S. delegation had traveled to Tibet before returning to Beijing. The standing committee of the National People's Congress had extended the invitation to Pelosi to visit China.

Pelosi, D-California, has been a vocal critic of China's human rights record, and China typically restricts foreign access to Tibet, where the indigenous population has been persecuted on political and religious grounds, Voice of America reported.

As part of her visit, Pelosi also met with Beijing's Congress, but did not mention Tibet in her public statements. In July, Pelosi provoked the irritation of Beijing when she celebrated the Dalai Lama's birthday in New York, along with actor and longtime Tibet activist Richard Gere.

Pelosi had said the Tibetan spiritual leader was a "compassionate religious leader, an astute diplomat and an undaunted believer in the power of nonviolence."

In July, when the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution petitioning China to improve the human rights situation in Tibet, Pelosi said, "If freedom-loving people don't speak out against repression in Tibet, then we have lost all moral authority to speak out on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."

China's state-controlled Tibet Daily reported the ethnic Han Chinese party chief in the region, Chen Quanguo, told Pelosi that the United States should not support any separatist activities and should ban the Dalai Lama from U.S. visits.

China's ruling Communist Party has vilified the Dalai Lama, 80, for his activism overseas, where he has lived since escaping Chinese occupation in 1959.

At least 140 Tibetans have died after setting themselves on fire in protests against China.