Bush confers medal on Dalai Lama

WASHINGTON — President Bush presented the Dalai Lama with Congress' highest civilian honor Wednesday, pressing China to engage with Tibet's exiled leader in his most significant embrace of a man whose cause and global following are constant irritants to Beijing.

Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader accepted the Congressional Gold Medal from Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., in a Capitol Rotunda ceremony.

The event marked the first time a U.S. president has appeared in public with the Dalai Lama, who has visited the White House before, but privately.

Bush met with the Tibetan leader at the White House on Tuesday, but no photographs were taken, in a sign of sensitivity over China, which the White House needs to negotiate with North Korea and others issues. On Tuesday, China pulled out of a planned international meeting on Iran's nuclear program, which some saw as a response to the Dalai Lama's visit.

"I will continue to urge the leaders of China to welcome the Dalai Lama to China," Bush said. "They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation."

A meeting between the Chinese and the Dalai Lama also would set the right tone for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

For more than 50 years, the man considered by believers to be the living embodiment of the Buddha has led the struggle for autonomy and religious freedom for his nation.

China has controlled Tibet since 1951, when it sent the Dalai Lama into exile. His encouragement of his homeland's nonviolent rejection of Chinese rule earned him the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

China's top leaders reacted with fury to news of the honor and had "solemnly demanded" cancellation of the event. China considers the Dalai Lama to be a separatist, feudal leader.

The situation is particularly personal for Chinese President Hu Jintao, an avowed friend of the United States who earlier in his career was involved in the Tibet crackdown. Bush told Hu of his plan to attend the medal ceremony this summer, while the two leaders attended an Asian summit in Australia.

"They didn't like it, of course, but I don't think it's going to damage — severely damage — relations." Bush said before Wednesday's ceremony.

In a sometimes-rambling speech punctuated by laughter and self-deprecating asides about his faulty English, the Dalai Lama thanked "American friends ... that have stood with us in the most critical of times and under the most intense pressure."

"The consistency of American support for Tibet has not gone unnoticed in China," he said. "That this has caused some tension in the U.S.-Sino relations, I feel a sense of regret."

He praised China for its powerhouse economy and technological advances. And he sought to assure China that he has no designs on independence for Tibet. "I am seeking a meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people," he said. "There is no hidden agenda."