Dalai Lama meeting 'pathetic'

BEIJING, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- China Daily, in another strongly-worded attack on U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to meet the Dalai Lama, said he was bowing to domestic politics.

"It is pathetic to see" Obama is likely to "succumb to domestic politics and go ahead with a plan" to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the newspaper said. China accuses the Buddhist monk, living in exile in India, of trying to promote independence for Tibet.

The report said as president of the world's only superpower, Obama is free to meet anybody on his own soil.

"But just don't paint this farce with a moral hue. We call that audacity of shame," the report said.

The Obama-Dalai Lama meeting, expected next month, "bodes ill for Sino-U.S. relations, already battered by the latest announcement of a $6.4 billion arms sale package to Taiwan," said the report.

China Daily and other Chinese media have kept up a barrage of attacks, warnings and threats after the Obama administration last week announced it was sending its Taiwan arms sales proposal to Congress.

"Times have changed," the report said. "But those ideology-driven politicians and China-bashers in the U.S. still don't realize that the ground has shifted beneath them."

The report said U.S. actions "will never change the fact that Tibet was, is, and will always be part of China."