President Obama was accused of bowing to Chinese pressure and snubbing the Dalai Lama as he prepares for a Sino-US summit in Beijing next month.

Tibet’s spiritual leader arrived in Washington yesterday on his first visit since Mr Obama’s inauguration. For the first time since 1991 he will not be received at the White House. The Dalai Lama will eventually meet Mr Obama, but not until the US President returns from the Beijing meeting.

American officials have insisted that the delayed encounter is part of a broad new strategy to win Chinese co-operation on a range of issues including North Korea, Iran, Taiwan — and Tibet. But the break with a nearly 20-year tradition of White House “drop-ins” by the Dalai Lama follows a declaration by Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, that human rights alone cannot be allowed to determine the US-Chinese relationship.

A leading Republican campaigner on human rights called Mr Obama’s failure to welcome the Dalai Lama “just terrible”. Frank Wolf, a congressman, veteran advocate for Tibet and friend of the Dalai Lama, told The Times: “This is a retreat by the Obama Administration on human rights and religious freedom.

“Dissidents in Lhasa will know exactly what it means. Guards will come by their cells and laugh at them. It’s a mistake and the ramifications are going to be felt for months ahead.” One Tibetan expert with ties to Chinese delegations in the US, who did not want to be named, said that the decision was unnecessary since Beijing had been resigned to a meeting going ahead.

The State Department announced yesterday that the Dalai Lama would be meeting its Tibet co-ordinator, Maria Otero, on his arrival in Washington.

US officials reacted angrily to suggestions that the White House had made a needless concession to Beijing, comparable to the announcement by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, last year that Britain no longer questioned China’s territorial claims in Tibet. The move was intended to kick-start direct talks on Tibet, but they collapsed soon afterwards.

The White House claims that delaying Mr Obama’s first meeting with the Dalai Lama as President is part of a new policy of “strategic reassurance”, designed to replace a policy of regular meetings with dissidents that did little to improve their lot.

The Dalai Lama’s representative in the US, Lodi Gyari, publicly endorsed the new policy yesterday, saying: “The Dalai Lama has always been supportive of American engagement with China.” He added in a statement: “Our hope is that the co-operative US-Chinese relationship that President Obama’s Administration seeks will create conditions that support the resolution of the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people.”

Privately, the Tibetans lobbied hard for a White House meeting this week and gave ground only when it became clear that the Obama Administration was not prepared to ignore Chinese opposition to the idea, according to The Washington Post.

Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said the Administration did not want to “downplay some of the concerns that we have in the areas of human rights, religious freedom and freedom of expression”, but argued that the relationship between China and America and the timing of a meeting were “two separate issues”.

A home from home

The Dalai Lama has visited the White House ten times since 1991, recently with maximum publicity.

In 2007 he was accompanied by President George W. Bush to the Capitol, where he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

In September 1987, the Dalai Lama proposed a five-point peace plan between Tibet and China to the congressional human rights caucus in Washington. He also met the former President Jimmy Carter.

In 1991 he spoke to members of Congress.

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