Dalai Lama team visit Beijing

The Dalai Lama. The visit is the first official contact between the two sides in nine years

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A delegation of exiled Tibetans arrived in China this week, but China's Foreign Ministry refused to comment on whether they will discuss reopening official ties between Tibet and Beijing.

Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen -- representatives of exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama -- arrived in Beijing on Monday, according to a statement from the Dalai Lama's office in Dharamsala, India.

The delegation is also scheduled to visit Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

"His holiness the Dalai Lama is very pleased that the team is able to make such a visit," the statement said.

The United States also lauded the visit, during Tuesday's State Department briefing.

"We do see the trip of Lodi Gyari to Beijing and then to Lhasa as a positive development, and we would hope that it would lead to progress on dialogue as well as on some of these other issues as well," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

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"We've also encouraged the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama, or the Dalai Lama himself, to enter into a dialogue."

Beijing's description of the delegation as a private, fact-finding mission appeared designed to downplay the significance of the visit and dodge questions about its nature, including the possibility that China's leadership and the exiled Tibetan government are trying to reach consensus on the future of the Himalayan region.

Unofficial contact

Unofficial contact between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's government in exile has been maintained since official ties with the Chinese government were cut in 1993, most recently through the Dalai Lama's brother.

From China's statements Monday there was no indication that Beijing had an agenda to reopen talks, which ended in 1993. Sharp differences remain between the Dalai Lama's exiled government in Dharamsala, which seeks a broader autonomy for Tibet.

China has accused the Dalai Lama of trying to wrest control away from the "motherland."

While a spokesman for the Chinese government said the Tibetans would meet with a "broad range" of people in Tibet, he declined to say whether they would meet Communist Party officials or other officials.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan repeated China's position that the Dalai Lama must recognize Tibet and Taiwan as part of China before any talks with Beijing.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, and in 1959 the Dalai Lama fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The Chinese believe communism liberated the Tibetans from a feudal theocracy led by the Dalai Lamas and that Tibet has developed considerably under their rule.

Others have claimed human rights abuses, as well as cultural and ecological destruction.