The Dalai Lama struck back at China on Sunday, saying accusations he's trying to sabotage the Beijing Olympics are "baseless."
Speaking from New Delhi, India, the Tibetan spiritual leader said he is in support of China hosting this summer's Games.
"I always support (that) the Olympics should ... take place in Beijing ... so that more than 1 billion human beings, that means Chinese, they feel proud of it," he said Sunday.
Chinese media attack
The Chinese media attacked the Dalai Lama on Sunday, accusing him of orchestrating the current unrest in Tibet to mar this summer's Olympics.
"The evil motive of the Dalai clique is to stir up troubles at a sensitive time and deliberately make it bigger and even cause bloodshed so as to damage the Beijing Olympics," said the Tibet Times newspaper, calling it "a life-and-death struggle between ourselves and the enemy."
The People's Daily, the newspaper of China's Communist Party, took a similar line of attack.
"The Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence," said the People's Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
The Dalai Lama lives in exile in Dharmasala, India. He has denied any role in the current unrest in Tibet and has threatened to quit if the violence continues.
Chinese state media has also targeted the Dalai Lama's supporters, such as Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives -- one of the top elected officials in the United States.
She met Friday with the Dalai Lama.
"If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and the Chinese in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out on human rights," she told a crowd of thousands of Tibetans on Friday.
"'Human rights police' like Pelosi are habitually bad-tempered and ungenerous when it comes to China, refusing to check their facts and find out the truth of the case," said a commentary published by Xinhua, the state news agency.
Xinhua said Sunday that 94 people had been injured in Gansu province during riots on March 15-16, but said life was returning to normal.
Olympics concerns
The unrest and violence in Tibet has resulted in an immense amount of bad publicity for China in the period leading up to the Summer Games this August -- an event China is hoping to use as a world "coming out" party.
The Olympic torch run is set to begin on Monday, with the lighting of the flame in Olympia, Greece. The torch run is scheduled to go through Tibet and up to the peak of Mount Everest. Chinese Olympic officials have said that will not change.
The only American city that will see the torch is San Francisco, on April 9. Protesters there are planning a large-scale demonstration in support of Tibet while the torch makes its way through the city.
International Olympics Committee President Jacque Rogge said he hopes the Games will be a force for positive change in China, expressing concern about the violence in Tibet on Sunday.
"We believe that China will change by opening the country to the scrutiny of the world through the 25,000 media who will attend the Games," Rogge told The Associated Press. "The Olympic Games are a force for good. They are a catalyst for change, not a panacea for all ills.
"Awarding the Olympic Games to the most populous country in the world will open up one fifth of mankind to Olympism."
With files from The Associated Press
