CHINA HAS said French president Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, prompted it to cancel a summit with the EU.
The meeting with the Dalai Lama, to take place on December 6th, "aroused strong dissatisfaction of the Chinese government and people", said a statement posted yesterday on the Chinese foreign ministry's website.
"We resolutely oppose [the] Dalai's separatist activities in any countries in whatever capacity, and the contact between foreign leaders with him in whatever form," the statement added.
The summit was due to take place on Monday in Lyon, with China to be represented by prime minister Wen Jiabao and the EU by Mr Sarkozy, as France holds the current rotating EU presidency. Among the issues up for discussion was the global financial crisis.
But on Wednesday China informed the EU it would not be attending. "The European Union, which set ambitious aims for the 11th European Union-China summit, takes note and regrets this decision by China," said an EU statement.
The meeting between the Dalai Lama and Mr Sarkozy is to take place during an event in Poland to honour Lech Walesa, the former leader of the Solidarity trade union, which challenged the communist regime in the 1980s.
"Nicolas Sarkozy is free to decide his agenda," said a spokesman for the French president.
The incident came as a shock and is the first time in 10 years that a China-EU summit has been cancelled. But both sides were keen yesterday to show that relations would not be damaged in the long term.
"China has not changed its determination and policy to actively develop its ties with the European Union," said the foreign ministry statement, adding that "China cherishes [its] ties with France" and it hoped both parties could "properly deal with China's major concerns in real earnest so as to create conditions for the steady development of bilateral relations".