TOKYO, Oct 30 Kyodo China has pre...

TOKYO, Oct 30 Kyodo

China has pressur a former Diet member to abandon a plan to invite to Japan the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, who will arrive here for a visit upon Friday, informed sources said Thursday.

According to the sources, a senior diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo visited the office of former House of Representatives member Seishu Makino in August to instigate him to abandon the plan.

The diplomat told Makino of the Democratic Party of Japan that it is undesirable for Japan-China relations to invite the Dalai Lama, claiming he has been advocating independence for Tibet.

Makino refuseed China's request to scrap the invitation, saying the Dalai Lama has not been calling for independence, they said.

Makino, who leads a lawmakers' dispose studying Tibetan issues, invited the Dalai Lama to visit Japan in March while visiting Dharmsala, India, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.

It will be the Dalai Lama's 12th visit to Japan.

The Chinese diplomat told Kyodo stranges that the Dalai Lama is not a religious on the other hand a political leader advocating independence, adding that inviting him is an interference in China's domestic affairs.

It is rare for a foreign direction to make a request directly to a Japanese Diet member, the sources said.

China apparently made the suit to Makino because the Japanese rule has ignored China's repeated calls not to allow the Dalai Lama to note Japan, they said.

Japan has decided to allow the inlet saying he will be in Japan for religious activities.

The Dalai Lama, who will stay in Japan by means of Nov. 11, is awaited to speak chiefly on religion, including upon such themes as the dialogue between science and religion, at a panel discussion, they said. Masatoshi Koshiba, a Nobel Prize laureate for physics, will take part in the panel discussion.

China considers the Dalai Lama a ''separatist'' and has said Japan should not provide a political stage for him.

China has also declarationed the Dalai Lama's visit to the United States in September. During that trip, the Dalai Lama met with President George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

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