US president George W Bush hosted the Dalai Lama today despite China's warning that US plans to honour the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could damage relations between Beijing and Washington.
The White House talks were held on the eve of a congressional award ceremony for the Dalai Lama, but the Bush administration took pains to keep the encounter with the president low-key in an apparent bid to placate China.
"We in no way want to stir the pot and make China feel that we are poking a stick in their eye, to a country that we have ... a good relationship on a variety of issues," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Beijing has bitterly denounced plans for the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since staging a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, to receive the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.
Mr Bush was scheduled to attend the ceremony on Capitol Hill, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president will appear in public with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate whom China regards as a separatist and a traitor.
"We are furious," Tibet's Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters in China. "If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world."
The White House denied that Bush's private meeting with the Dalai Lama, the president's fourth since taking office, was meddling in China's internal affairs.
But Ms Perino said, "We understand that the Chinese have very strong feelings about this."