Obama's meeting with Dalai Lama damages Sino-US relations-Wen.

14/3 Tass 72

BEIJING, March 14 (Itar-Tass) - The meeting between US President
Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama as well as Washington's plans to supply
weapons to Taiwan have inflicted a serious damage on Chinese-American
relations, said here Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at a news conference on
the results of the third session of the 11th Chinese parliament, ending
this Sunday.
"Advent to power in the US of the Obama administration gave a good
start for relations between two countries," the Chinese cabinet head said.
"However, over the past few months (January-March) Washington permitted
the Dalai Lama to visit the United States as well as stated its intention
to sell Taiwan a large batch of weapons and combat materiel."
"These moves by the American side," Wen continued, "were a crude
violation of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of China and
rendered a serous negative influence on the development of relations
between the US and the PRC." "Responsibility for the events rests not with
China, but with the United States," he emphasised.
"Relations between the two countries are based on three
Chinese-American communiques," the premier continued. Beijing hopes, he
went on to say, that Washington will show in practice "commitment to
principles of the above communiques".
The history of Chinese-American diplomatic relations, Wen added, has
proved that "peaceful relations are advantageous for the two countries,
while confrontation will inevitably lead to a mutual loss". "Dialogue is
better than confrontation, cooperation is better than containment, while
partnership is better than rivalry," he underlined. "This is an approach
which we should abide by on the way of pushing along the American-Chinese
dialogue."
The development of relations with Washington, said the Chinese
premier, "remain as before the main priority of Beijing's foreign policy,
since they affect not only vital interests of two countries and their
peoples, already overstepping the framework of bilateral relations."
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