Lady Gaga has reportedly been
added to a list of hostile foreign forces banned by China’s Communist
party after she met with the Dalai Lama to discuss yoga.
The
American pop singer, who has sold more than 27m albums, met the exiled
Tibetan spiritual leader on Sunday before a conference in Indianapolis.
A video of the 19-minute encounter
– in which the pair pondered issues such as meditation, mental health
and how to detoxify humanity – was posted on the singer’s Facebook
account.
The meeting sparked an angry reaction from Beijing, which has attacked the spiritual leader as a “wolf in monk’s robes”.
The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in March 1959, insists he is merely seeking greater autonomy from Chinese rule for Tibetans.
But China’s rulers consider him a separatist who they claim is conspiring to split the Himalayan region from China in order to establish theocratic rule there.
Following
Lady Gaga’s meeting, the Communist party’s mysterious propaganda
department issued “an important instruction” banning her entire
repertoire from mainland China, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily reported on Monday.
Chinese
websites and media organisations were ordered to stop uploading or
distributing her songs in a sign of Beijing’s irritation, the newspaper
said.
