South Africa exports about $5.5 billion a year in minerals to China.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, canceled a trip to South Africa planned for this week that had put Pretoria in a bind between its biggest trading partner China and one of its modern heroes, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu.
The Dalai Lama's office said on Tuesday he cancelled the trip for him to attend Archbishop Tutu's 80th birthday celebration this week because South Africa -- which has had his application paperwork for weeks -- had not issued him a visa on time.
South Africa had come under pressure from China not to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate Beijing sees as a dangerous separatist.
"We are, therefore, now convinced that for whatever reason or reasons, the South African government finds it inconvenient to issue a visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama," his office said in a statement.
The Dalai Lama, once embraced as a beacon of peace in South Africa when apartheid ended, has become a diplomatic headache for the country as its economic fortunes are increasingly linked to China, which had pushed Pretoria to reject a previous visa application.
"South Africa has not said 'no'," said foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela, "The man has decided to cancel the trip."
"Morally bankrupt"
South African officials said in the separate decision about two years ago it denied a visa so as not to offend China. The Dalai Lama was invited to attend a 2010 peace conference by Tutu and former Presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk.
Tutu said in a statement last week the manner in which the visa application was dealt with was reminiscent of the way authorities dealt with applications by black South Africans for travel under apartheid.
"The manner in which the South African government has responded to the visa application ... is profoundly disrespectful of two Nobel Peace Laureates who are among the most revered spiritual leaders on earth," Tutu's foundation said in a statement.
Last week, China agreed to $2.5 billion in investment projects with South Africa during a visit by South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to Beijing.
President Jacob Zuma's government has been severely criticised in local media for not allowing the visit for the birthday of Tutu, a man internationally respected for helping bring down authoritarian apartheid rule.
"This is a morally bankrupt decision aimed squarely at appeasing the emerging economic superpower, China," the influential Mail and Guardian newspaper said in an editorial.
"It is, indeed, saddening to count the many countries who stood in solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement and ask: where is our principled stand with the people of Tibet? The gays of Uganda? The dissidents in China itself?"
The Dalai Lama came to South Africa in 1996 to visit then President Mandela who told Beijing it was Pretoria's right to decide on whom it allows into the country.
South Africa exports about $5.5 billion a year in minerals to China and Africa's largest economy has been increasingly a destination for Chinese foreign direct investment.
China last year invited South Africa to join the BRIC grouping, a diplomatic coup for Zuma. It was also seen by analysts as a Chinese stamp of approval for the country's role as a stepping stone to the African continent.
China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since Communist troops marched in 1950. It says its rule has brought much needed development to a poor and backward region.
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