Within hours of Tibetan protestors scaling the Chinese embassy walls and entering its premises as a mark of protest last Friday, an extremely upset Chinese government summoned Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao well after midnight the same day to register a strong protest.

This, incidentally, was the second time the same day on March 21 that Rao was called in by Chinese authorities on the Tibet issue. Earlier in the day, Beijing took strong exception to reports that Vice-President Hamid Ansari would meet the Dalai Lama during the latter’s two-week stay in Delhi. It also showed discomfort with the visit of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Dharamshala to meet the Dalai Lama.

While sources indicated that the meeting with Ansari was slotted at least two months in advance, Chinese queries prompted the government to advise the Vice-President to call off the appointment. As a result, the meeting was cancelled with officials claiming that it was anyhow tentative and that the Vice-President, like any other Constitutional post, goes by the government’s advice when it involves meeting foreign dignitaries.

This allowed India to clarify to China that no such meeting was in the offing and neither does the Vice-President have any such plans. In fact, it’s learnt that the Dalai Lama has, in the past, also made requests to meet President Pratibha Patil but he has never been given an appointment. Currently, however, no fresh requests have been made.

Barely had this issue been quietly resolved, reports came in that about 10 Tibetan protestors had managed to scale the Chinese embassy walls in Delhi the same evening and run around the premises before being caught by security officials. This had the Chinese government fuming, said sources.

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