A day after US Charge d’Affaires Atul Keshap met a representative of the Dalai Lama at New Delhi, a Chinese embassy spokesperson said that the US should stop “meddling” in China‘s internal affairs on the pretext of the Tibetan issue.

Keshap, after meeting with Ngodup Dongchung, Dalai Lama’s representative, said that the US supports religious freedom and the preservation of cultural and linguistic identities of the Tibetan people. He further said that they respect the Dalai Lama’s vision for equal rights of all people.

In a series of tweets, Chinese embassy spokesperson Wang Xiaojian criticised the US for the meeting saying the Tibetan issue is China’s internal matter.

“@USAmbIndia Strongly opposed to repeated provocative acts by the US. Tibetan affairs are purely China’s internal affairs that allow no foreign interference,” Xiaojian tweeted.

“The US should honour its commitment, stop meddling in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Tibetan affairs, offer no support to the ‘Tibetan independence’ forces to engage in anti-China separatist activities,” Wang said.

The meeting between the two officials came two weeks after the official of the Tibetan government-in-exile called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit to India.

That meeting left China unimpressed, saying that it is a violation of Washington’s commitment to acknowledge Tibet as part of China and not to support Tibetan independence.

In the meeting, Dongchung thanked Blinken for the continued support by the US to the Tibetan movement.

When asked, a spokesperson of the US State Department told PTI, “Secretary Blinken had an opportunity to meet briefly this morning in New Delhi with a representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Central Tibetan Administration Representative Ngodup Dongchung.”

In another meeting, Tibetan representative Geshe Dorjee Damdul attended a roundtable that Blinken held.

“Tibetan affairs are purely China’s internal affairs that allow no foreign interference,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said of the meeting.

“The 14th Dalai Lama is by no means just a religious person but rather a political exile who has long been engaged in anti-China separatist activities attempting to split Tibet from China,” he added.

The 14th Dalai Lama has been residing in India since fleeing his Tibetan homeland in 1959.