Dalai Lama US visit will not affect APEC summit: experts

The Dalai Lama's recent visit to Canada and the US will not have any political influence on the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, experts said.

The Dalai Lama started his three-week visit to North America on October 20. He is scheduled to finish his visit to educational institutes in Canada on Friday and then leave for the US.

He will then visit schools and religious centers in the US until November 4. There are no meetings with Canadian or American political figures on his schedule, according to the website of the Dalai Lama's office.

His visit to North America comes ahead of the APEC summit, which will be held in Beijing on November 10 and 11, but experts said his visit won't affect the summit or achieve any political purposes.

"Western countries have been very cautious in meeting with the Dalai Lama in the past three or four years, and there's no chance that he could accomplish any of his political demands," Niu Xinchun, an expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.

China has long opposed foreign dignitaries meeting with the Dalai Lama, who fled to India and created the self-declared "Tibetan government in exile" in 1959 after a failed armed rebellion, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The Dalai Lama is a political figure in exile who is undertaking anti-China separatist activities in the name of religion. The Tibetan issue is a domestic affair for China, and there is no other country which has the right to interfere," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a press release in February, ahead of a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, Xinhua reported.

Many countries have avoided the Dalai Lama in recent years.

South Africa turned down his visa application in September out of concerns that such contact might affect its relationship with China, the AP reported.

The International community will not risk relations or economic ties with China to support the Dalai Lama as China's economic and political status is rising worldwide, Niu said.

Niu's view was echoed by Shao Yuqun, director of the Department of American Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

"The world now focuses more on China's economic growth and comprehensive power rather than the Tibet issue and the Dalai Lama," Shao told the Global Times.

Both Niu and Shao said that the status of minority issues involving Tibet and Xinjiang have been declining in international talks in recent years.