A delegation of U.S. lawmakers met with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in India on Wednesday, a move likely to provoke a strong reaction from China.

The visit coincided with President Joe Biden appearing poised to sign a bill aimed at pressuring Beijing to address tensions with Tibet and safeguard the region's native Buddhist culture.

The bipartisan group of seven lawmakers, led by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrived Tuesday in Dharamshala. This Himalayan town in northern India has been home to the 88-year-old Dalai Lama since he fled China in 1959 following a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

“It is still my hope that one day the Dalai Lama and his people will return to Tibet in peace,” McCaul said after the meeting, according to Reuters.

McCaul also stated on Tuesday that Biden would soon sign a bill passed by Congress the previous week, urging Beijing to resume negotiations with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders. These negotiations have been stalled since 2010. The bill also addresses concerns of the Tibetan people regarding their cultural, religious, and linguistic autonomy.

“This bill says to the Chinese government: things have changed now, get ready for that,” Pelosi remarked on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Her 2022 visit to Taiwan, claimed by Beijing, had previously led China to conduct live-fire military drills around the island following her departure.

The lawmakers’ meeting with the Dalai Lama is likely to aggravate Beijing at a time when the U.S. and China are attempting to improve their relations. Beijing perceives the 1989 Nobel Peace laureate as an anti-China “separatist,” a label he denies, and opposes any contact between him and foreign officials.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry asserted on Tuesday that Tibet-related affairs are an internal Chinese matter and warned that China would take “resolute measures” to protect its sovereignty, security, and developmental interests.

“We urge the U.S. side to adhere to its commitments of recognizing Tibet as part of China and not supporting ‘Tibet independence,’” spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular news briefing in Beijing. “The U.S. must not sign the bill into law.”

The Dalai Lama is scheduled to travel to the United States this month for medical treatment for his knees, his office announced earlier. It remains unclear whether he will meet with any U.S. officials during this visit.

Until the presidency of Donald Trump, the Dalai Lama had met with every sitting U.S. president since George H.W. Bush. Biden, who criticized Trump during the 2020 campaign for not meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, has not met with the Dalai Lama since taking office in 2021.

The lawmakers’ meeting with the Dalai Lama “seeks to compensate for the Biden administration’s reluctance to speak up on Tibet,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor emeritus of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi.

“The U.S. and India need to work together, including countering China’s disinformation on Tibet and foiling its plan to install a puppet as the next Dalai Lama,” Chellaney told NBC News in an email.

Like the U.S., India recognizes Tibet as part of China, even as it hosts the Tibetan exiles.

Rep. McCaul emphasized on Wednesday that the U.S. would not allow China to interfere in the process of naming a successor to the Dalai Lama, who is believed to be a reincarnation of the Buddha upon his death.

There is already a dispute over the rightful Panchen Lama, the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, after the Dalai Lama. The officially atheist Chinese government and the Dalai Lama identified different individuals as reincarnations in 1995. Activists claim that the Dalai Lama’s choice, a 6-year-old child, was kidnapped by the Chinese government days after being named and has been forcibly detained ever since.

China asserts that Tibet has prospered and modernized under Communist Party rule, citing the construction of highways, high-speed railways, and other infrastructure, as well as the promotion of tourism.

Critics, however, argue that this development has come at the cost of erasing Tibetan culture, language, and religion as Beijing “Sinicizes” the remote, mountainous region, which it annexed in the 1950s. They contend that the Chinese government's policies have systematically undermined the unique cultural and religious identity of the Tibetan people, replacing it with Han Chinese norms and practices.

“Such infliction of suffering and oppression on the Tibetan people by the Chinese Communist Party authorities is unparalleled and unprecedented,” said Penpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, last year. He emphasized the need for international support to address the ongoing human rights abuses and cultural erosion in Tibet.