President Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama at the White House next week.

China said it expressed grave concern to India about a visit by the Dalai Lama to a state in the country’s northeast at the heart of a long-running border dispute, saying it showed an anti-China bias.

The Dalai Lama transcends his religion and his nationality. He symbolizes a universal desire for liberty and decency and shares stature with the likes of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. The Dalai Lama is visiting Washington this week, and for the first time in his 10 trips since 1991 to the nation’s capital he will not be meeting with the president of the United States. A news story reports:

China said Thursday that it “resolutely opposes” a decision by Taiwan’s president to allow the Dalai Lama to visit the island.

China has overseen a “brutal crackdown” in Tibet since protests shook the Himalayan region last year, part of decades of Chinese oppression that have driven Tibetan culture to the verge of extinction, the Dalai Lama said today.

Not many teens can say they met the Dalai Lama. Derek Henderson, 13, of Mechanicsville can. And he has the photos to prove it. “I just walked in there . . . met him and the whole day I couldn’t believe it!“ said Derek, who along with his family visited the spiritual father of Tibet last month during a trip to India over the holidays.

The Dalai Lama said yesterday that he has given up on efforts to convince Beijing to allow greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule. The Tibetan spiritual leader said he would now ask the Tibetan people to decide how to take the dialogue forward. China has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama of leading a campaign to split Tibet from the rest of the country. The Dalai Lama has denied the allegations, saying he is only seeking greater autonomy for the Himalayan region to protect its Buddhist culture.