Beijing yesterday executed an about-face and announced that it would meet representatives of the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the restive Tibetan region.

The U-turn follows weeks of pressure from world leaders and a string of anti-Chinese protests both in Tibet and along the route of the Olympic Torch relay around the world.

Beijing has indulged in weeks of increasingly strident vilification in state media of the exiled monk, since deadly protests against Chinese rule and in support of the return of the Dalai Lama rocked the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region in early March. These then rippled through many neighbouring Tibetan-populated provinces, prompting China to send in paramilitary police to restore order and to seal off the area to foreigners.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said: “It is hoped that through contact and consultation, the Dalai side will take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games so as to create conditions for talks.”

The official statement stressed that China was responding to repeated requests from the Dalai Lama’s side to renew talks, a statement aimed at ensuring Beijing is perceived both internationally and among its own people to be retaining the upper hand in any meeting. Gordon Brown has urged reconciliation and President Bush has also told China that the Dalai Lama was a man with whom it could hold talks.

A spokesman for the Dalai Lama, speaking at his home in exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, welcomed the offer from China as a step in the right direction. Tenzin Takla said: "Only face-to-face meetings can lead to a resolution of the Tibetan issue.

"His Holiness, since March 10 when the protests started, had been making all efforts to reach out to China and the Chinese government and he hopes the Tibetan issue can be resolved only through dialogue.".

The terse Chinese announcement gave no indication as to the content of the talks, and offered no hint as to whether Beijing was ready to make concessions to the man it has recently denounced as a “monster” and a “jackal in monk’s robes” determined to split Tibet from the motherland.

But almost daily denunciations of the Dalai Lama in the local Tibet newspapers as well as in nationwide media have been carefully phrased to leave the door open for possible talks when Beijing might deem the moment to be right.

China has repeatedly accused what it calls the “Dalai Lama clique” of masterminding a riot in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on March 14, when Tibetans rampaged through the streets stabbing and stoning ethnic Han Chinese and burning shops and offices and leaving 22 people dead. But China has not linked the Dalai Lama himself to the violence.

It was not clear what more China expected from the Dalai Lama, who has said repeatedly he does not want independence for his homeland but is demanding meaningful autonomy. He is also on record in recent weeks as saying he hopes for the success of the August Olympics in Beijing, and does not back a boycott.

But the omens do not portend a swift breakthrough. China has already held six rounds of contacts in recent years with representatives of the Dalai Lama, with no apparent result, and has demanded he meet numerous preconditions before it will talk to him directly.

One of those conditions is that he abandon his campaign for independence for Tibet. Beijing has said repeatedly that the statements from the 1989 Nobel peace laureate that he is seeking only autonomy are nothing but a sham.

A hint as to what China might expect from talks came in an unusually toned-down statement last month from Premier Wen Jiabao, who made an unprecedented suggestion to the Dalai Lama to use his influence to halt the violence in Tibet.

Analysts said China could be looking for a statement or a pledge from the Dalai Lama to urge Tibetans to abandon their anti-Chinese protests and their calls for his return to ensure that Beijing’s summer Olympics proceed smoothly. However, it was unclear whether China would be prepared to offer any concessions in return, since it remains extremely wary of the loyalty the exiled god-king still commands among Tibetans some 49 years after he fled to India during an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.

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