Backing the United Progressive Alliance government over its stand on Tibet [Images], the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to spoil India-China relations by criticising the government's stand.

"Not just now, for a long time, India has had the position that Tibet is an integral part of China. India has never recognised it as a separate country," CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said on Monday, the third day of the party's ongoing 19th Congress in Coimbatore.

"These are moves - not only regarding China - by the Western powers, who believe that national sovereignty can be amended or abridged using the framework of human rights and ethnicity," Karat said, stressing that the CPM is against separatism in any part of the world. "Those who play into the hands of such powers will be doing a disservice to our own nation, which too faces a lot of separatist claims," he said.

The BJP had said the UPA government was kowtowing to the Chinese government by keeping quiet on the Tibet issue. 'It is shameful that the government, instead of expressing concern over the use of force by the Chinese government, is adopting a policy of blatant appeasement towards China with scant regard to the country's national honour and foreign policy independence,' the BJP had said.

NDA convenor George Fernandes [Images] had also called China potential enemy no. 1. Saying that the BJP was bent on using the Tibet issue for anti-China propaganda, Karat said Tibet is an internal issue of China, which will have to be solved by discussions within the agreed framework of that country.

Asked about the manner in which the Indian ambassador to China was summoned by the Chinese government to voice its concern about Tibet, Karat said it was a diplomatic issue and that the Indian government can very well express regret to the manner in which its ambassador was treated through proper diplomatic channels.