Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will deliver a lecture to West Yorkshire business leaders as he begins his tour of the UK.

Thubten Samdup, representative of the Dalai Lama, proclaimed the speech will be “a wonderful opportunity for Yorkshire’s business leaders to hear a distinctive message of ethics and morality from one of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders”.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner’s eight-day visit to the UK is suspected to put Britain’s ties with China under new strain. Since Prime Minister David Cameron’s last month meeting with Dalai Lama in London, Beijing has frozen diplomatic exchanges with British ministers.

China is upset with this UK visit of the Tibetan guru who is considered an enemy of the Chinese state. Dalai Lama’s claim of winning autonomy for his people, the Tibetans, anguishes China which has always demanded Beijing’s sovereignty over the Himalayan region.

Angry China threatened earlier to take away its athletes from Leeds Olympic training camp. Leeds is hosting China’s pre-Olympic Games training centre, with about 220 athletes, coaches and support staff based in the city from early July. The hosting deal, as reported by Leeds City Council, is worth £250,000.

Dalai Lama is latest of the high profile guests including Neil Armstrong, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former US President Bill Clinton, in Yorkshire International Business Convention.

Mike Firth, convention founder divulged, “He is one of the most travelled men in the world, he has spoken with the most prominent of world leaders, and is one of the most high-profile guests we have ever had.”