US lawmakers to meet Dalai Lama during India trip next week

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul is expected to lead a bipartisan US congressional delegation to India in the coming days, where he and other lawmakers, including former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plan to meet with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

McCaul, Pelosi and a group of other US lawmakers will travel to Dharamsala – the town in the northern Indian Himalayas where the 88-year-old Tibetan monk lives in exile – on June 18 and 19, a Tibetan government official said in exile, known as the Central Tibetan Administration, told Reuters.

The meeting takes place a few days before a planned trip from Dalai Lama in the United States to undergo medical treatment for his knees, but it is not known if he will have any commitments during this period.

US Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. Photo: Reuters — Michael McCaul, Chairman of the United States Foreign Affairs Committee. Photo: Reuters

US lawmakers have regularly visited Dharamsala and touted Nobel Prize of Peace-the Dalai Lama’s work to build global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote, mountainous country. China considers him a dangerous separatist.

The lawmakers’ trip will likely coincide with a separate visit to India by senior Biden administration officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who have sought to bolster US-India ties amid Washington’s growth rivalry with Beijing.

McCaul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pelosi’s office said it could neither confirm nor deny any upcoming trips due to longstanding security policies.

Spokespeople for the U.S. State Department and White House National Security Council did not immediately respond when asked about Sullivan and Campbell’s trip and whether they planned to meet with Dalai Lama, or if the American president Joe Biden or other US officials would meet him in the UNITED STATES.

The Dalai Lama has met with U.S. officials, including U.S. presidents, during previous visits to the United States, but Biden has not met with him since taking office in 2021.

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As a candidate in 2020, Biden criticized Donald Trump for being the only president in three decades who has not met or spoken to the Tibetan spiritual leader, calling him “disgraceful.”

Such engagement would likely anger Beijing at a time when the United States and China are seeking to stabilize their troubled relationship.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, after the failure of an uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet. Chinese officials chafe at any interaction he has with officials from other countries.

Last week, China’s U.S. Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said Beijing “firmly opposes any anti-China separatist activities carried out by the Dalai Lama in any capacity or name, in any country, and opposes any form of contact by officials of any country with him.”