NEW DELHI -- Ignoring Chinese protests, the Dalai Lama traveled to a disputed part of India near China's Tibetan border yesterday as thousands of pilgrims braved cold weather to catch a glimpse of their spiritual leader.

The Dalai Lama, who was sharply criticized by Beijing before the visit, expects to spend five days praying and instructing Buddhist worshippers in the monastery town of Tawang in the northern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. His last visit there was in 2003.

China has accused the spiritual leader of making the trip to further the movement for an independent Tibet, a region that accounts for about one-sixth of Chinese territory.

"He is always involved in activities that undermine the relations between China and other countries as well as ethnic separatist activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a regular news briefing earlier this month in Beijing. "The Dalai Lama is a liar."

Although Beijing has leveled similar accusations for decades, its charges have become more pointed since deadly anti-government riots broke out in March 2008 across the Tibetan plateau.

Past visits by the Dalai Lama to Tawang have merited little response from China, said Vijay Kranti, editor of Tibbat Desh, a newspaper for the Tibetan exile community in India.

China's reaction this time has made it into a bigger deal than it otherwise would be, he said.

"The Dalai Lama's best advertising agency is Beijing," Mr. Kranti said.

Tawang is significant politically and religiously. Not only has it been at the heart of a border dispute between India and China since their 1962 war, but China briefly occupied the town during the conflict before pulling back to the current demarcation.

The town of 39,000 is the site of one of Tibetan Buddhism's largest monasteries and a place where the Dalai Lama took refuge 50 years ago when he fled Tibet ahead of pursuing Chinese soldiers.

Residents of Tawang, many from the Monpa tribe, maintain close links with Tibetans in China, adding to China's distrust, and the sixth Dalai Lama, enthroned in October 1697, came from Tawang.

Beijing, which often blames domestic instability on outside instigators, is fearful the current Dalai Lama, 74, might name a successor from this area.

Mr. Kranti said that while China has cranked up the rhetoric in advance of this visit, India has pushed back, a welcomed development.

"By saying he's got every right to go and is an honored guest, India is sending a message to China, standing up a bit more to Chinese hegemony," he said.

In recent months, relations between the two Asian giants have become strained as India and China, both enjoying rapid economic growth and vying for regional influence, have sparred over visa policy, trade and border issues. Few of these issues are new, however.

"In actual substance, I see no development," said Salman Haider, a former Indian foreign secretary. "But the atmospherics are certainly undesirable. It shows an edginess has crept into the bilateral relationship."

Indian news media cite frequent cases of Chinese soldiers firing weapons into India and leaving Chinese-brand cigarette packs and the word "China" painted on rock faces on Indian territory.

Although the 1962 conflict between the two giants, which China essentially won, spotlighted the border dispute, the roots of their differences involving about 56,000 square miles of Arunachel Pradesh stretch back nearly a century. India recognizes the so-called McMahon Line, a border drawn by India's British rulers in 1914; China does not. China also occupies a part of Kashmir claimed by India.

In recent years, eager for regional stability, China has resolved most of its land-border disputes with other neighbors. Despite meeting 13 times, however, India and China have not made much progress, in part because this area under dispute is far more populous and culturally sensitive than those shared with Russia and others.

Adding to recent distrust, China tried to block part of an Asian Development Bank loan to India that included projects for Arunachel Pradesh. And China accuses India of discriminating against Chinese workers with its visa policy.

The two countries have tried in recent weeks to lower the temperature given their shared interests. Late in October, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a side meeting during an Asian regional conference.

India, in an apparent effort to placate China, refused to grant permits to foreign journalists hoping to travel to the restricted region to cover the Dalai Lama's trip.

Both sides have significant domestic problems they would prefer to expend their time and resources on, even as their economic links have grown stronger. Bilateral trade has expanded 50 percent annually over the last five years to reach $51.8 billion in 2008.

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