The Dalai Lama on Tuesday met acting Prime Minister Jim Anderton at parliament, despite Chinese objections.
Anderton and the Dalai Lama gave each other scarves as gifts, in an encounter 66-year-old Tenzin Gyatso said was spiritual rather than political.
Anderton and Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff met the Tibetan spiritual leader despite pressure from the Chinese government to ignore his visit. Prime Minister Helen Clark is in Australia.
Exiled from Tibet, the Dalai Lama arrived on Monday after nine days in Australia, where government ministers would not meet him. While New Zealand has ignored the Chinese calls, it did cave in to a to a complaint from the Chinese embassy over an Auckland banner which contained a political message — the words ”In Exile In Auckland”.
The banner was taken down.
However, Anderton said the Chinese were showing a new maturity in their approach to the Dalai Lama. China once took retaliatory diplomatic action when such meetings took place, he said.
”I don’t see any sign that that’s going to be a difficulty this time … the protest was made, we have heard it,” he said.
”Our culture and our society’s approach to dissent is different — we can still have mutual respect for each other.
”We count China as a valuable friend, a valuable trading partner and a valuable part of the international community,” he said. – Sapa-AFP