Karmapa not a Chinese spy, says Beijing
By IANSMonday, January 31, 2011
BEIJING - Beijing has said that speculation over Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu sect, being a Chinese spy “shows that India is keeping its mistrustful attitude toward China”, an official said.
A Chinese official denied reports that the Karmapa was part of a Chinese plan to control monasteries along the Sino-Indian border.
Xu Zhitao, an official at the united front work department of the CPC central committee, told the Global Times Sunday that “the speculation by India’s media, regarding the matter of the Karmapa as a Chinese agent or spy, shows that India is keeping its mistrustful attitude toward China”.
Nearly Rs.70 million worth of unaccounted foreign and Indian currency was recovered from the premises of the Gyuto Tantric University and Monastery that the Karmapa heads near Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.
The Karmapa has told Indian investigating agencies that the money seized during the raids was given by his devotees and he had not done anything to harm India’s interests.
Xu said: “The 17th Karmapa Living Buddha is the first reincarnated Living Buddha confirmed and approved by the central government of the People’s Republic of China after the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951.”
“The Karmapa left China in 1999 for the purpose of religious behaviours, just as he claimed,” Xu was quoted as saying.
The Karmapa is the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu School, one of the four sects of Buddhism. He is considered the third most important Tibetan religious head after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
The Karmapa fled Tibet and sought refuge in India in January 2000. Ever since, he has mostly lived in the Gyuto Tantric monastery in Sidhbari near Dharamsala - the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
