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Archbishop Desmond Tutu, left, and the Dalai Lama are seen during a meeting in Cape Town in August 1996.

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 Archbishop 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.

Archbishop 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.

"It would have been much more respectful to have received a negative answer, than no answer at all," said Nomfudo Walaza, chief executive officer of the Desmond Tutu Foundation.

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.

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