Chinese Protest Bush-Dalai Lama Meeting

WASHINGTON — Chinese Ambassador Zhu Qizhen protested President Bush’s meeting Tuesday night with the Dalai Lama, Administration officials said Wednesday.

Zhu “explained the Chinese government’s concern about meetings by foreign officials with the Dalai Lama,” the exiled spiritual leader of 6 million Tibetan Buddhists, a State Department statement said.

At the Tuesday night meeting with Zhu, Undersecretary of State Robert M. Kimmitt, third-ranking official in the State Department, reiterated U.S. statements that Bush had met with the Tibetan leader as a sign of “respect for a revered religious figure” and out of concern for human rights problems in Tibet.

Chinese officials repeatedly have protested contacts with the Dalai Lama by U.S. universities and other major institutions. Bush’s meeting was the first between a U.S. President and the Dalai Lama and came as an abrupt reversal of previous U.S. policy.