South Africa bars Dalai Lama after pressure from China

Cape Town, South Africa has bowed to Chinese pressure and declined to grant the Dalai Lama a visa, forcing him to cancel his attendance at a gathering of Nobel Laureates in Cape Town.
This was the third time that South Africa has denied a visa to the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people since 2009.
China considers the Dalai Lama to be a violent subversive, plotting to break up the country. Any country which allows him a visa does so over China’s furious objections.
Under President Jacob Zuma’s leadership, South Africa has become a close ally of Beijing. Critics believe that China now possesses a de facto veto over aspects of South African policy, notably over whether to allow the Dalai Lama to visit.
A statement from the South African foreign ministry confirmed that “His Holiness the Dalai Lama” had provided “written confirmation” of the cancellation of his “planned visit”.

This came after South Africa had failed to provide any formal response to his visa application. “We have informally received contact His Holiness won’t get his visa,” said Nangsa Chodon, the Dalai Lama’s representative in South Africa, according to Reuters news agency.
The Tibetan leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, had planned to attend a meeting of other Laureates in Cape Town in October. In 2011, he was prevented from travelling to South Africa to attend the 80th birthday party of his friend Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and another Nobel laureate.
On that occasion, the authorities simply failed to reply to the Dalai Lama’s visa application, leading a South African court to rule that officials had “unreasonably delayed” their decision. In 2009, the Dalai Lama was denied permission to attend a peace conference in South Africa.
Patricia de Lille, the mayor of Cape Town and an opponent of the ruling African National Congress, said that South Africa would suffer “international humiliation” if it continued to bar the Dalai Lama.
In 2012, China was South Africa’s biggest bilateral trading partner, with imports and exports totalling £17 billion.