Chinese Official Slams Dalai Lama

If you were starting to believe that the Chinese government somehow was becoming rational and responsible because they are doing so much business with the West, this should bring you back down to reality:

A senior Chinese official has accused the Dalai Lama of conspiring with a host of perceived enemies, from Islamic separatists to the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, to weaken Beijing's hold over his homeland in Tibet, state media reported Monday.

In a speech, Tibet's Communist Party secretary, Zhang Qingli, warned that the Dalai Lama was "ganging up with Taiwan independence forces, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, democracy movements, and the Falun Gong in an attempt to establish an alliance aimed at splitting the motherland," the official Xinhua News Agency reported on it Web site.

We should be very wary of a regime that makes such paranoid accusations. I believe the Mainland constitutes the greatest threat to American national security. Yes, even greater than al Qaeda:

"The Dalai clique has stepped up efforts to infiltrate (China's) domestic territory and has schemed to move the center of its separatist activities into domestic territory," Xinhua paraphrased Zhang as saying to a meeting of 600 officials in Lhasa on Friday.

In recent weeks, Beijing has stepped up a diplomatic campaign meant to isolate the Dalai Lama and intimidate foreign governments from hosting him. He canceled an appearance in Belgium after China objected, and a planned visit to Australia next month drew warnings from the Chinese Foreign Ministry last week.