London, Mar 20: Prince Charles will meet with the Dalai Lama in London in May, a spokesman confirmed, just a day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would do the same, much to Beijing's ire.

The announcement by the heir to the throne is likely to also draw opposition from Beijing, which said it was "seriously concerned" over Brown's plans to meet the Tibetan leader when he vists the British capital.

Asked by AFP whether the prince would meet with the Dalai Lama, a spokesman for the royal said: "Yes, that is accurate."

The spokesman declined to comment further, however.

In January, Charles told a group that campaigns against human rights abuses in Tibet that he would not be attending the Beijing Olympics in August.

The prince is a well-known supporter of the Tibetan cause, and hosted a reception at St. James's Palace in May 2004 for the spiritual leader, whom Beijing regards as a separatist.

He has also not spoken kindly of China's leaders in the past -- in a diary entry made public in 2006, Charles wrote on the occasion of Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997 that China's leaders resembled a "group of appalling old waxworks".

China, meanwhile, articulated its concerns over Brown's meeting with the Dalai Lama, with foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang describing him as "a political refugee engaged in activities of splitting China under the camouflage of religion," according to the official Xinhua news agency.

He added that Beijing was "seriously concerned" by the news of Brown's announcement.

But the Dalai Lama's representative in Britain, Tsering Tashin, told Channel 4 News: "This is the standard official Chinese statement. If anything happens they make this sort of statement."

"The most important thing for China is to recognise that there is a real problem inside Tibet."

Brown's confirmation came after he spoke by telephone to Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and pressed him to end violence in Tibet, which has triggered a swift clampdown by Chinese authorities.