US Congress members urge Biden to meet Dalai Lama | Al Jazeera

Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress have urged President Joe Biden to meet with the Dalai Lama in a bid to ensure that Tibetans’ rights remain high on the agenda, even as it carries more risks on the troubled ties between Washington and Beijing.

Since George HW Bush in 1991, every sitting US president has met the Tibetan spiritual leader except Donald Trump as the now 86-year-old Dalai Lama slows down his once frenetic travel schedule.

In similar letters, 38 senators and 27 House members also called on the United States to press China to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s representatives that last took place 12 years ago.

“President Biden can demonstrate the importance of His Holiness’ moral message and example by inviting His Holiness to meet in the Oval Office,” the Senate letter said.

A focus on Tibet would be a “tangible manifestation of a principled foreign policy that prioritizes human rights and the quest for human dignity,” said the letter led by Democrat Patrick Leahy and Republican Marco Rubio.

If the Dalai Lama is unable to travel, the senators said Biden should send Vice President Kamala Harris or another senior official to see him in India, where the Nobel Peace Prize winner has lived since fleeing a Chinese offensive in Tibet in 1959.