AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE

For the first time in my life I was in jail but I never felt it was a jail except for the bars in front of me. The constable and the police official were sweet and they know why we are here.
I was with eleven more girls, all kicked WEN JIA BAO`S ass so hard that no body regretted coming and spending a night in Jail.
I was missing my mom and a comfortable bed, but I thought of those people who are in Tibet, they are suffering in Jail physically and mentally. That thought made me feel proud that I have contributed to this struggle and will continue to do such things.
Tenzin Tselha
SFT PUNE

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

The event started with Ujawala of Open Space India talking about Human Rights and the need of people`s activism in the injustice that is happening all over the world, she stressed more on using the liberty that they have in their country"FREEDOM OF SPEECH"
Then Alia of Socio Club in Fergusson college started her Poem and then followed by Introduction on Tibet by Tenzin Tselha and the poems on Tibet by Tenzin Tsondue and Shakapa.
It ended nicely with a group song by Socio Club.

POETRY AND MUSIC SESSION

I am not a foreigner. by Tsewang Phuntsok

I HAVE A FOREIGN LOOK
I DRESS UP NOT AS U
I SPEAK DIFFERENT
AND SOME TIME SAME IN DIFFERENT ACCENT
I ATE UR FOOD BUT IT TASTES DIFFERENT TO MY TONGUE
YA, M FOREIGN TO UR PLACE
AND U ASSUMED ME AS FOREIGNER
I LIVES HERE ON SOMEONE'S CHARITY
AND YOUR HOSPITALITY
DONT MISUNDERSTAND ME
I TOO HAVE A HOME LIKE YOU
BUT NOT LIKE YOU
YOU ARE LIVING AS YOU WISH
AND DOING AS U DARE
I WAS THROWN OUT FROM MY BELOVED HOME
AND THEY SAID I HAVE TO WISH AS THEY WISH
AND DO AS THEY DECIDE
I WILL GO BACK ONE DAY WITH ALL MY BROTHERS N SISTERS
BUT EXCUSE ME,
I M NOT FOREIGNER, M REFUGEE HERE ON UR LAND.............

The Tibetan Indians by Sakhi Deshpande on Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 10:42pm

Pune, a haven for students from all streams, cultures and backgrounds is a city which can very well be classified as a melting pot. People of myriad nationalities from the nooks and corners of the world find home in this college town and Pune readily assimilates them in its culture. One such community is that from Tibet.

With an effort to become a part of the world culture, the Tibetan community in Pune is not only trying to propagate the cause for a free Tibet, but is also working to be a united, close knit group by preserving their identity amongst themselves. Small in number, the Tibetan community in the city comprises of 22 students, 5 or 6 of them working in call centres and approximately 100 of them selling sweaters. The energetic and smart lot of students here are a part of the large international foreign student commune the city is blessed with. There is only one minor aberration; most of them have been born and brought up in India. “I like to call myself a Tibetan Indian rather than a Tibetan refugee living in India”, says the 22 year old Tenzin Tselha. Thoughtful and endearing, Tenzin is pursuing a Masters Degree in English from Abeda Inamdar College and has been living in the city for the past 5 years. With both her mother and father in the Special Forces of the Army, she was born and brought up in the small, intimate Tibetan community in Ladakh away from the frenzy and wrath of the outside world. Educated at the Tibetan Children Village School (TCV) in Ladakh, one of the 14 TCV schools in the country, Tenzin wants to be a teacher like her mother and her sister. But more so, she wants to go back and teach in the Tibetan community. “I want to go back and work in the Tibetan society and teach at one of the TCV schools or at the Central School of Tibetans, where my sister is teaching now. The Central School for Tibetans comes under the Tibetan Government in Exile in India. TCV was set up by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama’s sister. You can find thriving Tibetan communities in Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. After I finished 12th grade from Dharamshala, I thought of moving out. My sister was studying in Mumbai at that time and she told me about Pune and that it’s a good place to study further. I, then, moved here to study Arts.” says Tenzin.

Throwing more light on her experiences after moving to Pune from an absolutely secure and close knit Tibetan community in Ladakh, she said the transition was very extreme and the life here was starkly contrast to the life she was accustomed to. “There was just so much exposure when I came to Pune, it was difficult to handle initially. But one of the main issues was with landlords and people we lived under as tenants. They would try to cheat us, extort money from us. I had no clue about all this when I first came but by third year of college, I knew how things worked here”, says Tenzin. Following Tenzin’s thoughts, Sonam Gangsang, a 23 year old working at the Infosys BPO, retorts, “It’s when you hang out at random places that people tease you as “chink chau” and think we are from the North East or Nepal. But we don’t take it seriously. Food was a major problem for me. Despite of living in India all my life, I had never eaten Indian food before! We live in India, but as thorough Tibetans. Talking from the work perspective, working here in Pune has been great. My perception about Indians has completely changed. My colleagues are just like my Tibetan friends now.” After graduating from St. Francis College, Hyderabad, Sonam came to Pune to study and become a librarian but took up a job in a call centre later to support herself and her two young sisters of the nine daughters in her family! After her sisters become self reliant, Sonam plans to get back to teaching in Tibetan schools too. Recalling her life in Ladakh, it’s been 7 years that she has spent away from all the festival celebrations. She misses going to the monasteries the most.

Spending time with each other on Tibetan holidays or watching movies, going to malls is something these students always love. They celebrated their New Year, Losar, on 14th February where all of them got together in their traditional dresses, cleaned their houses, made Tibetan food like “Desil”, a type of rice and “Momos”. They offered their prayers to His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. The week before, they had a noodle eating ceremony at their friends place.

As we talk about the issue of an estranged Tibet and the struggle to have its independence, the community seems poignant and strongly poised to make itself heard albeit the distance that separates them from the country. The international organization, Students for Free Tibet (SFT) was started in Pune a year ago and the Tibetan Student Association (TSA) started in the city was inculcated into it. “SFT was founded in Canada in 1994. There are a lot of foreigners who are a part of this organization and a lot of them are from Bhutan. We try to do something all the time but its difficult to get permission from the commissioner. We try to meet every month, discuss issues, and talk about how we can inform people about Tibet. The TSA became a part of it since we didn’t have resources to run it properly.” says Tenzin, who is also the coordinator for SFT from Pune. They held several candle marches in 2008 and had a couple of film screenings and introductory sessions last year to inform people about their culture and its people. They also held a hunger strike outside Pune Station when the monks from the many monasteries in Karnataka had come for a visit.

Despite having a distinct belongingness to India, Tenzin, Sonam and their friends hope to go back to their nation and they hope it evolves into autonomy by then. While that would give them great pride, Tenzin is of the opinion that it will be best for Tibet and its people to go under China. “We lack infrastructure and engineering right now. Albeit being under China, I think we could still preserve our culture and individuality”

“You must have noticed that Tibetans are generally very shy people. We later realized that it’s not a good quality to possess” quips Sonam in her quiet, articulate manner. Anything but under confident, the Tibetan community stands firm on its feet as it passionately yearns for progress and taking it to their people. Having grown up in a secluded community that strongly holds on to its roots and despite of living in India all their life, these Tibetan students have their own share of trials but an equally high sense of self. They stand exactly for what today’s struggling Tibet wants to represent- unity, self reliance and a calm, peaceful strength.

The Tibetan Indians

Dalai Lama calls for harmony among world religions

Pretoria - In the midst of religious wars and intolerance worldwide, the Dalai Lama says the world’s major religions should find common ground to help people find their quest for happiness. I asked his representative for Africa to elaborate.
The Dalai Lama was speaking on the subject during a visit to Hungary, linked to Tibet by the work of Hungarian scholars starting in the Nineteenth Century. The representative of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, Sonam Tenzing, said in an interview religions had common ground. Speaking on the telephone from his office in Pretoria, South Africa, Tenzing said:
I think, Number One, is to understand Inter-religious harmony. He is trying to focus on inter-religious harmony that is essential in the modern century.
But with extremists calling for conflicts, wars, banning of each other’s clothing, I wondered whether harmony among religions was possible?
Inter-religious harmony is possible, because in all the different faiths ad religions throughout the world, what is most commonly found is love and forgiveness. And all of these religions speak of happiness. I think all of these religions speak of discarding all the miseries and bringing joy and happiness to the adherent of whichever said religion it might be. I think that is really the common ground where all religions harmoniously promote all these human or ethical and moral values. I think he (the Dalai Lama) was referring to these moral values.
Tenzing stressed the Dalai Lama had done a great deal to build bridges between religions:
In the past years efforts were being made with clergy of different other religions: Jewish, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Muslims, I think he has been in touch with most of the important religious figures in the world. I think his approach to meeting different leaders of different faiths have been applauded and appreciated. I am sure that you would not disagree to the statement that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is one of the leaders who makes a definite effort to promote interreligious harmony.
He added the Dalai Lama’s appreciation of Christian religious contemplatives who practice something not dissimilar to Buddhist meditation. He said:
In his books, he has made references to Christian clergy, especially the late the late Father Thomas Merton, who I think he appreciates very much.
During his visit to Hungary, Tenzing Gyatso, to give the Dalai Lama’s name, paid homage to the first Tibetologist, Sándor Csoma de Kőrösi, and (1784-1842) who went to the east in to find the ancestral homeland of the Hungarians. He was Gottingen-trained linguistic genius who soon spoke a dozen languages and planned to travel to East Turkestan (now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Republic of China) but was diverted by a local war to British India. There he joined the Asiatic Society and began his study of Tibetan language and culture. He was the first to publish a Tibetan-English dictionary and a grammar of Tibetan. Throughout his journeys he identified with local people and never lived like a “superior” European.

Wikimedia Commons
Sándor Csoma of Kőrös, the Hungarian pioneer of Tibetan studies.
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He lived in great poverty in Ladakh where he studied Tibetan and planned to visit Lhasa in 1842, but contracted malaria and died. He is buried in Darjeeling. The Dalai Lama described the sum of his work as “a great act.” I asked Tenzing whether the Tibetan people knew of Kőrösi:
The Hungarian scholar Kőrösi Csoma Sándor, or to the Tibetans he may be known as Alexander Csoma Kőrösi: What can be said, after they fled Tibet in 1959, the first and second generation who escaped, because of education, interaction with cultures with different people (including) scholars, have led to a knowledge of this pioneering scholar.
Religion and education often go hand in hand. Of Kőrösi possible conversion to Buddhism, Tenzing said:
I would say he studied Buddhist culture and he actually studied under Buddhist masters, so one could say he made an effort to become a Buddhist through his learning.
Relations between Hungary and the Tibetans are very good. Tenzing said:
The pioneering scholar has contributed to this relationship. Today educated Tibetans, when they want to refer to how relations between Tibetans and Hungarians developed, would refer to this scholar and I have seen articles by Tibetan scholars and western scholars and the great effort he made close to Tibet border studying Buddhist culture and his effort to get it to outside world.
There is also a consistent rumour that Kőrösi was made a Buddhist saint or bodhisattva, but if so, this would only apply to a monastery in Japan and could be based on an error.

TIBET AS A STATE

This year SYMBIOSIS COLLEGE of Pune, India has put up TIBETAN FLAG as well with other countries flag. (Tibet is Independent country).

His Holiness the Dalai Lama meets a group of students whose parents and relatives live in the earthquake affected area

His Holiness the Dalai Lama meets a group of students whose parents and relatives live in the earthquake affected area of Kyigudo at his residence in Dharamsala on April 18th, 2010. His Holiness offered his condolences to the bereaved and his prayers for the dead and the survivors. His Holiness advised the students not to lose hope, to keep up their courage, and to continue to study hard.

FACE TO FACE WITH TENZIN TSUNDUE

What was presumed before as an official meeting with a SFT representative turned out to be an evening of laughter, casual exchange of heart felt conversation and memorable gathering.
Tenzin Tsundue visit to pune was indeed in a way replenishing touch for the Tibetan students and quite fitting, Tenzin describes himself as someone who reminds and redirects any who in the rhythm of life strays from the domain that is identity, freedom and Tibet.
He regards health and education as the two most important factors for anyone who aspires to fight on through the challenges how so ever grave and larger than life,answering the queries from the students and sharing intimate knowledge and ever relating moments from his own life, Few hours passed swiftly.
tsundue spoke with fierce dedication and with such compassion chipped with humorous anecdotes, it really hard not to think about his words after he left waving GOOD BYE

International Students stood in solidarity with Tibetans

Pune – Students from 16 different countries in Pune met today to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising day at Symbiosis Auditorium.

March 10 holds a special significance in the hearts of all Tibetans as on this day, 51 years ago, Tibet experienced one of the bloodiest massacre in the history of our struggle. Thousands of innocents and nonviolent protesters were killed by the People's Liberation Army(PLA) in Lhasa. The day also signifies Tibetan people's resistance against Chinese occupation of Tibet when thousands of Tibetans gathered infront of the Potala palace to guard the Dalai Lama and defy the foreign occupation.

“It is our responsibility as Tibetans growing in the free world to share the plight of our brothers and sisters in Tibet to the global community.” said Tenzin Tselha, Coordinator of Students for a free Tibet – Pune chapter. “Organizing this meeting of international students enable us to educate our peers from different parts of the world to understand Tibetan struggle better.”

In today's event, "Knowing the Others", Tibetan students did a special presentation on the Tibetan freedom struggle and Tibetan culture to the gathering followed by presentation of culture by student participants from different countries. The participants also sang their feelings through songs, hence creating an atmosphere of international union.

“Through this meeting, we were able to highlight the current situation in Tibet to the participants.” said Tenzin dolkar, a Tibetan participant and member of Students for a free Tibet. “Situation in Tibet has never improved since the Occupation. We demand the Chinese government to stop oppressing people of Tibet.”

Pune is a city of many communities and diverse culture. Known for its educational facilities with more than hundred educational institutes and nine universities, Pune has attracted international students for different parts of the world.

Students for a free Tibet, Pune chapter remembers this day and wants to acquaint the plight and tragedy of Tibet that is fragmented into the hearts of six million Tibetans to Pune and beyond.

KNOWING OTHERS

STUDENT FOR A FREE TIBET,PUNE cordially invites you all for knowing others an event organised to mark the anniversary of Tibetan National uprising day. We aim to promote universal kinship and understanding of a wider perspective when it comes to international cultures or to say the culture of the world.
This is to bring your kind notice that it will be held on the 9th march due to unavailability of auditorium on the 10th.
THANK YOU

Why Tibet?

HISTORY LEADING UP TO MARCH 10TH 1959
Immediately after the communist party took power in China in 1949 it began asserting its claim that Tibet was part of Chinese territory and its people were crying out for "liberation" from "imperialist forces" and from the "reactionary feudal regime in Lhasa".

By October 1950 the People's Liberation Army had penetrated Tibet as far as Chamdo the capital of Kham province and headquarters of the Tibetan Army's Eastern Command. The region was routed and the Governor, Ngawang Jigme Ngabo, taken prisoner. Chinese forces were also stealthily infiltrating Tibet's north-eastern border Province, Amdo, but avoiding military clashes which would alert international interest.

That year the 15-year-old Dalai Lama, his entourage and select government officials, evacuated the capital and set up a provisional administration near the Indian border at Yatung. In July 1951 they were persuaded by Chinese Officials to return to Lhasa. On September 9, 1951, a vanguard of 3,000 Chinese "liberation forces" marched into the capital.

By 1954, 222,000 members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were stationed in Tibet and famine conditions became rampant as the country's delicate subsistence agricultural system was stretched beyond its capacity.

In April 1956, the Chinese inaugurated the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet (PCART) in Lhasa, headed by the Dalai Lama and ostensibly convened to modernize the country. In effect, it was a rubber stamp committee set up to validate Chinese claims.

In the later fifties, Lhasa became increasingly politicized and a non-violent resistance evolved, organized by Mimang Tsongdu, a popular and spontaneous citizens' group. Posters denouncing the occupation went up. Stones and dried yak dung were hurled at Chinese street parades. During that period, when the directive from Beijing was still to woo Tibetans rather than oppress them, only the more extreme Mimang Tsongdu leaders and orators faced arrest.

In February 1956, revolt broke out in several areas in Eastern Tibet and heavy casualties were inflicted on the Chinese occupation army by local Kham and Amdo guerilla forces. Chinese troops were relocated from Western to Eastern Tibet to strengthen their forces to 100,000 and "clear up the rebels." Attempts to disarm the Khampas provoked such violent resistance that the Chinese decided to take more militant measures. The PLA then began bombing and pillaging monasteries in Eastern Tibet, arresting nobles, senior monks and guerrilla leaders and publicly torturing and executing them to discourage the large-scale and punitive resistance they were facing.

In Lhasa, 30,000 PLA troops maintained a wary eye as refugees from the fighting in distant Kham and Amdo swelled the population by around 10,000 and formed camps on the city's perimeter.

By December 1958, a revolt was simmering and the Chinese military command was threatening to bomb Lhasa and the Dalai Lama's palace if the unrest was not contained. To Lhasa's south and north-east 20,000 guerrillas and several thousand civilians had been engaging with Chinese troops.

On March 1, 1959, while the Dalai Lama was preoccupied with taking his Final Master of Metaphysics examination, two junior Chinese army officers visited him at the sacred Jokhang cathedral and pressed him to confirm a date on which he could attend a theatrical performance and tea at the Chinese Army Headquarters in Lhasa. The Dalai Lama replied that he would fix a date once the ceremonies had been completed

This was an extraordinary occurrence for two reasons: one, the invitation was not conveyed through the Kashag (the Cabinet) as it should have been; and two, the party was not at the palace where such functions would normally have been held, but at the military headquarters - and the Dalai Lama had been asked to attend alone.

March 7, 1959. The interpreter of General Tan Kuan-sen - one of the three military leaders in Lhasa rang the Chief Official Abbot demanding the date the Dalai Lama would attend their army camp. March 10 was confirmed.

March 8, 1959. This was Women's Day, and the Patriotic Women's Association was treated to a harangue by General Tan Kuan-sen in which he threatened to shell and destroy monasteries if the Khampa guerrillas refused to surrender. "... we knew that the ordinary people of Lhasa were being driven to open rebellion against the Chinese though they would have to fight machine-gunners with their bare hands", writes Mrs. Rinchen Dolma (Mary) Taring in her autobiography, Daughter of Tibet.

March 9, 1959. At 8.00 am two Chinese officers visited the commander of the Dalai Lama bodyguards' house and asked him to accompany them to see Brigadier Fu at the Chinese military headquarters in Lhasa. Brigadier Fu told him that on the following day there was to be no customary ceremony as the Dalai Lama moved from the Norbulinka summer palace to the army headquarters, two miles beyond. No armed bodyguard was to escort him and no Tibetan soldiers would be allowed beyond the Stone Bridge - a landmark on the perimeter of the sprawling army camp.

By custom, an escort of twenty-five armed guards always accompanied the Dalai Lama and the entire city of Lhasa would line up whenever he went. Brigadier Fu told the commander of the Dalai Lama's bodyguards that under no circumstances should the Tibetan army cross the Stone bridge and the entire procedure must be kept strictly secret.

The Chinese camp had always been an eyesore for the Tibetans and the fact that the Dalai Lama was now to visit it would surely create greater anxiety amongst the Tibetans.

March 10, 1959. The invitation provoked 30,000 loyal Tibetans to surround the Norbulinka palace, forming an human sea of protection for their Yeshe Norbu (nickname for the Dalai Lama, meaning "Precious Jewel"). They feared he would be abducted to Beijing to attend the upcoming Chinese National Assembly. This mobilization forced the Dalai Lama to turn down the army leader's invitation. Instead he was held a prisoner of devotion.

March 12, 1959. 5,000 Tibetan women marched through the streets of Lhasa carrying banners demanding "Tibet for Tibetans" and shouting "From today Tibet is Independent". They presented an appeal for help to the Indian Consulate-General in Lhasa.

Mimang Tsongdu members and their supporters had erected barricades in Lhasa's narrow streets while the Chinese militia had positioned sandbag fortifications for machine guns on the city's flat rooftops. 3000 Tibetans in Lhasa signed their willingness to join the rebels manning the valley's ring of mountains.

On March 15, 3000 of the Dalai Lama's bodyguards left Lhasa to position themselves along an anticipated escape route. Khampa rebel leaders moved their most trusted men to strategic points. Stalwarts of the Tibetan Army merged with civilians to cover the chosen route. By this time the Tibetans were out-numbered 25 to 2. An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Chinese troops wielded modern weapons and had 17 heavy guns surrounding the city. While the Chinese manned swiveling howitzers, the Tibetans were wielding cannons into position with mules.

March 16, 1959. Chinese heavy artillery was seen being moved to sites within range of Lhasa and particularly the Norbulinka. Rumours were rife of more troops being flown in from China. By nightfall Lhasa was certain that the Dalai Lama's palace was about to be shelled.

March 17, 1959 4 pm. The Chinese fired two mortar shells at the Norbulinka. They landed short of the palace walls in a marsh. This event triggered the Dalai Lama to finally decide to leave his homeland.

"... when the Chinese guns sounded that warning of death, the first thought in the mind of every official within the Palace, and every humble member of the vast concourse around it, was that my life must be saved and I must leave the Palace and leave the city at once", recalls His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in his autobiography, My Land and My People "There was no certainty that escape was physically possible at all - Ngabo had assured us it was not.. If I did escape from Lhasa, where was I to go, and how could I reach asylum? Everything was uncertain, except the compelling anxiety of all my people to get me away before the orgy of Chinese destruction and massacre began".

At 10 pm. on the night of March 17, wearing a soldier's uniform with a gun slung over his shoulder, the Dalai Lama marched out of the Norbulinka and onto the danger-filled road to India and freedom His mother and elder sister had preceded him.

March 19, 1959. Fighting broke out in Lhasa late that night and raged for two days of hand-to-hand combat with odds stacked hopelessly against the Tibetan resistance.

At 2.00 am the Chinese started shelling NorbuLingka. The Norbulinka was bombarded by 800 shells on March 21 Thousands of men, women and children camped around the palace wall were slaughtered and the homes of about 300 officials within the walls destroyed. In the aftermath 200 members of the Dalai Lama's bodyguard were disarmed and publicly machine-gunned. Lhasa's major monasteries, Gaden, Sera and Drepung were shelled -the latter two beyond repair - and monastic treasures and precious scriptures destroyed. Thousands of their monks were either killed on the spot, transported to the city to work as slave labour, or deported. In house-to-house searches the residents of any homes harbouring arms were dragged out and shot on the spot. Over 86,000 Tibetans in central Tibet were killed by the Chinese during this period.

The Dalai Lama and his party crossed the Indian border at Khenzimane Pass on March 31. Pandit Nehru announced on April 3 in the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) that the Government of India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. The party took a couple of days to reach Tawang the headquaters of the West Kameng Frontier Division of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now known as the Tawang District of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Dalai Lama stayed four days in Tawang where he had the opportunity to visit the beautiful monastery Tawang Gompa and Urgyeling, the place where the 6th Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyaltso spent his first years. The Dalai Lama later proceeded to Bomdila where he was officially received by an envoy of the Indian Government a welcome message from Nehru. After a few days of rest, the party left for the plains of India.

On April 18, 1959, the Dalai Lama, his mother, sister, brother, three ministers and around 80 other Tibetans crossed safely into India at Tezpur, Assam, to be greeted by Indian officials and a Press corps of nearly 200 correspondents, all eager for what they called "The Story of the Century".

>From Tezpur he made his famous statement known as the Tezpur Statement in which he repudiated the 17 Point Agreement signed under duress" in 1951 in Beijing.

He then left for Mussorie.



US refuses to cancel Obama's Dalai Lama meeting

By Stephen Collinson (AFP) – 19 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The United States on Friday escalated a mounting row on multiple fronts with China, refusing Beijing's demand to cancel President Barack Obama's meeting next week with the Dalai Lama.

The deepening public spat over Tibet, a row over US arms sales to Taiwan, China's dispute with Google and trade and currency disagreements, come at a key diplomatic moment, as Obama seeks Chinese help to toughen sanctions on Iran.

The White House announced Thursday that Obama would hold his long-awaited meeting with the revered Dalai Lama at the White House next week, drawing an angry reaction from China and a demand for the invitation to be rescinded.

But Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs signalled the White House would defy China's warning that the encounter would damage already strained Sino-US relations.

"I do not know if their specific reaction was to cancel it," Gibbs said.

"If that was their specific reaction, the meeting will take place as planned next Thursday."

Obama avoided the Dalai Lama when he was in Washington in 2009, in an apparent bid to set relations with Beijing off on a good foot in the first year of a presidency which included several meetings with President Hu Jintao.

But he warned Chinese leaders on an inaugural visit to Beijing in November that he intended to meet the Buddhist monk.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said earlier that Beijing firmly opposed "the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him."

"China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations."

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in 1959, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He denies he wants independence for Tibet, insisting he is looking only for "meaningful autonomy."

Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama will take place in the White House Map Room and not, in an apparent effort to mollify China, in the Oval Office, where US presidents normally meet VIPs and visiting government chiefs.

The Obama administration has insisted disputes over Tibet, Taiwan, currency and Google will not hamper efforts to win the support of China, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, on toughened nuclear sanctions against Iran.

China has yet to agree to the concept of toughened sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, calling for more negotiations, even as Russia appears closer to backing the move to punish Tehran.

US officials say that the Sino-US relationship is mature enough to override disagreements on key issues but the temperature of public disagreements has risen sharply in recent days.

The powers have clashed over a 6.4-billion-dollar US arms deal for Taiwan, with China accusing the United States of violating the "code of conduct between nations" with the sale to what it sees as a Chinese territory.

Beijing also has been angered by Washington's support for Google after the web giant announced it would no longer abide by China's strict Internet censorship rules and could quit the country over cyberattacks.

The foreign ministry denied involvement in the hacking of Gmail accounts and accused Washington of "double standards" after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented the restrictions on China's 384 million Internet users.

Earlier this month, Obama said he planned to be "much tougher" about enforcing trade rules with China, and favoured constant pressure on Beijing over opening markets and on currency rates.

China responded by dismissing US "wrongful accusations and pressure