Commentary

Obama’s Dalai Lama snub sends wrong signal

• Publication Date：11/20/2009
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Manik Mehta

What a delicious irony. While the Dalai Lama was being honored in Washington last month with the inaugural Lantos Human Rights Prize for his efforts to end global injustice, U.S. President Barack Obama was putting off a meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader until after his visit to mainland China.

Obama’s decision to pass on face time with the Dalai Lama marks a departure from the near two-decade-old tradition of past U.S. presidents in receiving the Dalai Lama.

House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, who described the Dalai Lama as one of the most highly honored peacemakers of our time, praised his efforts to persuade Beijing to improve its human rights record. “Unless we speak out for human rights in [mainland] China and in Tibet, we lose all moral authority to talk about human rights anywhere in the world.”

Pelosi’s position contrasts sharply with Obama’s Dalai Lama decision. Before leaving for mainland China, Obama was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans who are appalled by the situation in Tibet and feel the president is kowtowing to Beijing and turning a blind eye to human rights violations in Tibet by the mainland communist regime.

Obama’s decision to put off his meeting with the Dalai Lama sends the wrong message to Beijing, for whom the postponement is a sign of U.S. weakness. Beijing could now be emboldened to dictate its position on other issues as well—if it is not doing so already—such as its treatment of Uighurs since June’s deadly ethnic rioting in the Xinjiang region, and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

On the issue of Taiwan, which is a touchstone of U.S.-mainland China relations, Washington could face a similarly belligerent Beijing. While it is understandable that Washington does not want an escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait, it must also send a strong message to the mainland that it will not tolerate any aggressive posturing on Taiwan.

Thus, Obama’s refusal to meet the Dalai Lama before his mainland China visit has set a dangerous precedent that can hurt U.S. global interests and create uncertainties among American allies in Asia. The mainland, which already fancies itself as the only power in the world capable of challenging the United States in today’s unipolar world, could be under the impression that Washington is unwilling to respond to any distress call from Taiwan in the future.

Even though Obama has appointed Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero as his special coordinator on Tibet, the move serves little use if the president himself decides not to receive the Dalai Lama out of fear of offending mainland China. To many, it appears that the rulers in Beijing are virtually telling the leader of the world’s most powerful nation whom he should or should not meet.

Appeasement is not synonymous with “engaging” mainland China. Obama could take a cue from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s response to Beijing’s illogical protest over the Dalai Lama’s travels within India. Singh told Wen Jiabao, the mainland’s second-highest ranking official, on the sidelines of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations summit in Thailand last month that the Dalai Lama was an “honored guest” of India and free to travel wherever he liked in India.

Beijing even went so far as to try and stop the Dalai Lama’s visit this month to Arunachal Pradesh, a northeastern Indian state—parts of which are claimed by mainland China. India considers Arunachal Pradesh an integral part of its territory.

Despite U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly’s insistence that there has been no policy shift on Tibet, the Obama administration’s attitude creates the impression that it is becoming “subservient” to the mainland in return for favors on a number of global issues.

Obviously, Washington needs Beijing’s cooperation on a host of thorny issues ranging from global warming and international finance to reining in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. However, Obama’s “soft approach” risks sending the wrong message to tyrants in other regions as well.

Although Obama has been a breath of fresh air in the White House with his charisma, humility and personal philosophy of life, it would be a strategic mistake to use this approach with regimes that frequently resort to violence to snuff out even the slightest peaceful opposition and seek to eliminate ethnic minorities.

Tibet is facing what critics decry as “cultural genocide” systematically practiced by mainland China. Tibet received some 4.75 million tourists from January to September, but the bulk of these tourists comprised Han Chinese, whose population in Tibet now exceeds that of the ethnic Tibetans. More than 1.2 million Tibetans have lost their lives opposing the rule of mainland China since the latter seized Tibet in 1950 and forced the Dalai Lama to escape to India in 1959.

Supporters of Tibet, whose ranks are swelling not only in the U.S. but also in other parts of the world, will be closely watching Obama’s treatment of the Dalai Lama, now that his official visit to mainland China is over.

—Manik Mehta is a free-lance writer based in New York.
These views are the author’s and not necessarily those of “Taiwan Today.” Copyright © 2009 by Manik Mehta

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