WASHINGTON — Risking heightened tensions with China, President Bush will attend a ceremony to award Congress’s highest civilian honor to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader whom Beijing reviles as a separatist.

Mr. Bush will go to the Capitol on Wednesday to speak at the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal, whose recipients have included Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, and President and Nancy Reagan. The president also will welcome the Dalai Lama in the White House residence Tuesday. Beijing expressed its unhappiness about honoring the Dalai Lama, the winner of the 1989 Peace Prize.

“China resolutely opposes the U. S. Congress awarding the Dalai its so-called Congressional Gold Medal, and firmly opposes any country or any person using the Dalai issue to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said at a news conference in Beijing.

Mr. Liu said China had “presented a representation” to Washington over Congress’s move but gave no details.

The Dalai Lama will be honored for his “many enduring and outstanding contributions to peace, nonviolence, human rights, and religious understanding.”

The Dalai Lama has been based in India since fleeing his Himalayan homeland in 1959 amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He remains immensely popular among Tibetans, despite persistent efforts to demonize him by Beijing, which objects vigorously to all overseas visits by the Dalai Lama.