Beijing, China - China criticized U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday for meeting the Dalai Lama and dismissed Washington's annual report on religious freedom as groundless, but said the issues would not overshadow Bush's visit to Beijing.
Bush met the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, at the White House on Wednesday, a day after his administration named China a serious violator of religious freedom in a report to Congress.
``The Dalai Lama is not a simple or a pure religious figure. He is a political exile. We oppose the meeting of him with other leaders,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news briefing.
``Other leaders should not provide a platform for him to separate the country,'' he said.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese Communist rule and leads a government-in-exile. While in Washington, he called the atmosphere in Tibet ``very repressive.''
Liu said the State Department's annual report on religious freedom, which said China restricts religious practice to state-sanctioned groups, made groundless accusations.
``We ask the U.S. to stop interfering in China's religious affairs under the guise of the religion issue,'' Liu said.
``All people in all regions in China enjoy religious freedom in accordance with the law.''
China sentenced a Protestant minister, his wife and her brother to prison terms of up to three years earlier this week for illegally printing Bibles and other Christian publications, one of their lawyers said.
China's ruling Communist Party also objects to allegiance to any authority other than its own, meaning its Catholics are not allowed to recognize the authority of the Pope and belong to a state-backed church.
A parallel, underground church exists alongside, but China's rules mean it has not had diplomatic relations with the Vatican since the 1950s.
The religious freedom report and the wrangling over the Dalai Lama raise the thorny issue of human rights record ahead of Bush's November 19-21 trip, but Liu said it would not overshadow the visit.
``The importance will not be diminished by a single incident,'' he said. ``The visit will achieve its planned goals.''