China on Friday demanded again the White House cancel a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, warning that already strained ties between the two powers would be damaged further.
Beijing reacted angrily to the White House announcement that Obama would next week receive the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, accused by China of seeking independence for his homeland.
"We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.
"We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he added.
"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 two sides have clashed in recent weeks 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" by selling weapons to what it sees as Chinese territory.
Beijing has also been irked 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 "highly sophisticated" cyberattacks.
The foreign ministry angrily denied any 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.
The White House invitation to the Dalai Lama, who will be in the United States for a week starting Wednesday, also comes as Obama tries to build an international consensus on sanctions against Iran.
If there is to be a unified front against Tehran over what the West believes is a covert nuclear weapons programme, Obama must secure the backing of China, which wields a veto as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Iran insists its atomic programme is peaceful.
In one step possibly intended to mollify China, Obama's February 18 talks with the Dalai Lama will take place in the White House Map Room, not the Oval Office, where the US president normally meets foreign leaders and VIP guests.
"The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious leader. He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights. The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
It was not clear whether Obama would meet the Dalai Lama in front of the cameras, or in private.
Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama when he was in Washington last year, in an apparent bid to set relations with Beijing off on a good foot early in his presidency.
But he warned Chinese leaders on a visit to Beijing in November that he intended to meet the Buddhist monk.
Gibbs sidestepped a question about whether US attempts to win China's support on Iran would be hampered by the Dalai Lama's visit.
"We think we have a mature enough relationship with the Chinese that we can agree on issues that are of mutual interest," Gibbs said.
"But we also have a mature enough relationship that we know the two countries... are not always going to agree on everything, and we'll have those disagreements."
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in 1959, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. That came nine years after Chinese troops were sent to take control of the region.
Since 2008 China has tightened its grip on Tibet following a wave of anti-Chinese unrest that erupted in March of that year and which Beijing blamed on the 74-year-old.
The Dalai Lama denies he wants independence for Tibet, insisting he is looking only for "meaningful autonomy" for the mountainous region.
The ageing monk has for years criss-crossed the globe meeting world leaders, who in recent times have received increasingly stern rebukes from Beijing.
Relations between the EU and China were briefly thrown out of kilter after the Dalai Lama met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy while France held the bloc's rotating presidency.
