China says Sarkozy to pay price for meeting Dalai Lama

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will pay a "heavy price" for meeting the Dalai Lama, a Chinese state paper said yesterday, keeping up Beijing's vitriol over Mr Sarkozy's encounter with the exiled Buddhist leader.

Beijing brands the Dalai Lama a dangerous "splittist" for demanding self-determination for Tibet and was incensed by Mr Sarkozy's meeting on Saturday with the exiled 73-year-old Buddhist monk.

Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, told the Dalai Lama at their meeting in Poland that Europe shared his concerns over his homeland, which the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei on Sunday said it was up to France to "fully understand the damage" done to relations by Mr Sarkozy's act.

Now the overseas edition of the People's Daily has again warned that China will not easily forget the meeting, accusing Mr Sarkozy of political opportunism and threatening China's interests.

"He ignored China's repeated entreaties and stubbornly refused to shift, plainly determined to step over China's red line," said an editorial in the newspaper, which acts as the voice of the ruling Communist Party.

"This malicious provocation concerns China's core interest in national unity and inevitably will exact a heavy price."

The Dalai Lama has met many other Western leaders, including US President George W. Bush. But China appears increasingly impatient with Western pressure over Tibet, occupied by People's Liberation Army troops from 1950. And it appears especially angry that Mr Sarkozy met him while holding the EU presidency. The editorial accused Mr Sarkozy of staging the meeting to shore up his domestic political position.

"Mr Sarkozy is having a hard time of it. The economy is in decline, unemployment has jumped and his public approval ratings have slumped," said the paper. "So Mr Sarkozy has seized upon human rights and Tibetan issues, wanting to stir things up to divert public attention."