Below is an article published by Bloomberg.com

The Dalai Lama drew more than 1,000 people to an arena in southern Taiwan today [2 September] to witness his meeting with Catholic Cardinal Shan Kuo-his as part of his five- day visit to comfort survivors of Typhoon Morakot.

The two religious leaders received a standing ovation from the crowd at the Hanshin Arena in the city of Kaohsiung where they held a public dialogue for about 2 hours. The Dalai Lama said a short prayer in Tibetan, after which a Christian choir sang a hymn in Mandarin and the cardinal said a prayer.

“It’s great that two religions can get together,” said Medusa Kuo, 33, an insurance broker who left her Tainan home at 5:30 a.m. today to see the Dalai Lama. “Both have the goal of giving peace to people.”
The Tibetan spiritual leader was invited by politicians from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party for prayers and blessings after the storm killed 609 people last month. While the Dalai Lama says he has no “political agenda,” the trip risks straining ties between Taiwan and China, which accuses him of separatist activities.

“Various major traditions I think still have a great important role on this planet,” the Dalai Lama said today, when asked to compare Buddhism and Christianity. “We can’t buy peace of mind at the supermarket.”

He hugged and thanked his interpreter at the end of the session and left the arena hall surrounded by police and security guards.

Nobel Prize

After the meeting, the Nobel Peace Prize winner left Kaoshiung for Taipei where he will stay until he leaves on Sept. 4. The Dalai Lama will meet with more than 500 Tibetans at the Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei on Sept. 3, Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation, said today.

More than 200 police surrounded the downtown Taipei hotel where the Dalai Lama is staying as pro-unification protestors waved banners and chanted, “Taiwan and Tibet belong to China,” according to a broadcast on TVBS news station.

The visit may hurt efforts by President Ma Ying-jeou to further strengthen ties with China, the island’s biggest trading partner. Ma agreed to the visit as his popularity slumped amid criticism his government responded too slowly to the devastation caused by Morakot.

China reiterated its “resolute opposition” to the Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan, saying it is “bound to have a negative influence” on cross-strait relations, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said Aug. 31.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed rebellion against Chinese forces in 1959. He accuses the government in Beijing of committing “cultural genocide” there and says mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese has made Tibetans a minority in their own land. China says it peacefully liberated Tibet and saved its people from serfdom.

Taiwan and China have been ruled separately since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, or Nationalists, fled to the island after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists in 1949. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to reclaim it.