Dalai Lama visit to Strasbourg provokes threats from China

China has expressed anger and threatened countermeasures after the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama spoke at the European parliament in Strasbourg last week and met its president, Martin Schulz. China regards the 81-year-old Nobel peace prize-winning monk as a separatist, though he says he merely seeks genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland, which communist Chinese troops “peacefully liberated” in 1950. Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday the European parliament and Schulz had ignored China’s “strong opposition” about meeting the Dalai Lama, which ran contrary to the European Union’s promises to China on the issue of Tibet. Read more