A Japanese official has met the Dalai Lama during the exiled Tibetan leader's stopover in Tokyo.
Kyodo news agency reported that Japan's vice minister of the cabinet office, Kenzo Yoneda, met the Dalai Lama Saturday at a hotel near Tokyo's Narita Airport.
The news agency report said the Chinese government, which considers Tibet as part of China, had warned Japan not to allow the Dalai Lama to make the stop over. The report said Mr. Yoneda is the highest ranking Japanese official to meet the Dalai Lama.
China has ruled Tibet since it occupied the Himalayan area since 1951 and has been accused of trying to wipe out Tibet's culture through repression and a flood of ethnic Chinese immigration.
The Dalai Lama and his followers fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
(Kyodo, CNN, afp)