China has urged US President Barack Obama to cancel a planned meeting with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
"China is firmly opposed to this," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement on its website.
"We urge the US side to treat China's concern in a serious way and immediately cancel the planned meeting."
China calls the Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and accuses him of seeking independence for Tibet.
Hua said that China had "already lodged solemn representations" with the US over the planned White House meeting on Friday.
"The US leader's meeting with the Dalai is a gross interference in China's internal affairs, a severe violation of codes of international relations and will seriously impair China-US relations," Hua said.
Obama last met the Dalai Lama, a fellow Nobel peace laureate, at the White House in 2011 in talks that triggered an angry response from Beijing, which said the encounter had harmed Sino-US relations.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the two leaders would meet in Washington on Friday.
In a sign of the sensitivity of the meeting, it was listed on the president's daily schedule as closed to the press.
It will take place in the Map Room on the ground floor of the White House residence and not the Oval Office in the West Wing, which Obama usually uses to meet foreign leaders and visiting dignitaries.
Hayden also underlined that the US supported the Dalai Lama's approach but recognised Tibet to be "a part of the People's Republic of China".
"We do not support Tibetan independence," she said.
"The United States strongly supports human rights and religious freedom in China. We are concerned about continuing tensions and the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibetan areas of China," she said.
