WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talking to the Dalai Lama offers China's best chance for a peaceful solution in Tibet, U.S. lawmakers and activists said on Tuesday, arguing that Beijing's refusal to meet the exiled leader hurt China.
China has held five rounds of fruitless talks with the envoy of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India after a failed uprising against Communist rule in 1959, eight years after the Chinese military marched in to annex Tibet.
Beijing has rejected dialogue with the Dalai Lama, asserting that the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner is a separatist despite his official call for greater autonomy within China for his predominantly Buddhist homeland.
"It takes two to tango and the Tibetans have been dancing alone," said Tom Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
Lantos, a California Democrat, expressed concern over deteriorating human rights in Tibet and made the region the subject of his committee's first hearing on China under the new U.S. Congress.
The Dalai Lama will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in October.
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