The visiting Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Saturday he was eager to meet with the former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui.
In his first press conference after his arrival earlier in the day, the Tibetan Buddhist leader said he "admired" and "respected" Lee, whom he last met in the Czech Repubic last year.
"I'm eager to meet my old friend," the Dalai Lama told reporters at the Howard Plazard Hotel Taipei.
He spoke highly of Lee's achievements in pushing for Taiwan's democratization: "He was the first person who implemented democracy in China's 5,000 years of history."
Lee was elected as the island's head of state in the first universal presidential polls in 1996.
The Dalai Lama met with Lee in his unprecedented trip to Taiwan in 1997. But he declined to comment on Lee's theory that China be divided into seven blocs, including one for Tibet, and be ruled separately, while he said Lee's freedom of speech should be sustained.
Beijing cranked up propaganda pressure on Lee after he defined in 1999 the ties between Taiwan and China were "special state-to-to relationship," a statement Beijing said implicated independence.
The Buddhist leader also denied Beijing's accusations that he was here to collude with Taiwan independence activists to split China.
"Whether I would make such efforts, you media people please watch me, investigate me, then you'll find the answer," he said.
"Maybe Beijing should send people here to examine me" to see if he was trying to press for Taiwan independence or Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama said.
Beijing has insisted that his words are "insincere" and calls him a tool of anti-China forces in the West, especially the United States.
The Dalai Lama has adopted a conciliatory approach by dropping calls for Tibetan independence, instead demanding large-scale autonomy. He has lived in exile in northern India since the failure of an anti-China uprising in Tibet in 1959 – TAIPEI (AFP)
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