What irony! On the day US President Barack Obama was declared winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, he snubbed another highly respected and widely admired Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, by refusing to meet him out of fear of offending China.
Obama said that a meeting with the Dalai Lama would take place only after his impending visit to China, which is exerting pressure on the White House to prevent such a meeting.
The US president obviously, needs China's help on a range of global issues, such as non-proliferation (North Korea and Iran), human rights violations (Myanmar, Darfur, China), US debt [China held nearly $800 billion (Dh2.94 trillion) in US treasuries as of early September 2009], etc. But that, critics say, should not prevent Obama from ignoring issues because they are unsavoury to China.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has personally visited the Dalai Lama in his Dharamsala abode in India, praised the latter's efforts to urge China to improve its human-rights record, saying that "unless we speak out for human rights in China and in Tibet, we lose all moral authority to talk about human rights anywhere in the world".
This poses a sharp contrast to Obama's decision, which has been criticised by both Democrats and Republicans who are appalled by the situation in Tibet; they feel the president is sending the wrong signal to China's communist regime, which could believe that Obama will possibly condone its human rights violations in Tibet.
Indeed, the Beijing leadership could feel emboldened to dictate its position on other issues as well — if it is not doing so already — such as the Uighur problem, Taiwan's defence, US cooperation with India, etc.
Singh's example
Obama could take a cue from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's response to China's massive protest over the Dalai Lama's travels within India. While recently meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the Thai holiday resort Hua Hin on the sidelines of the Asian summit meeting, Singh told Wen that the Dalai Lama was an "honoured guest" of India and was free to travel wherever he liked in India. The Chinese tried to stop the Dalai Lama from visiting Arunachal Pradesh, a northeastern Indian state, parts of which are claimed by China. Even though Singh's government, trying to placate China, banned foreign journalists from travelling to Arunachal Pradesh during the Dalai Lama's visit, it emphasised that the Dalai Lama was free to visit the state, which it describes as an integral part of India.
While the Obama administration claims that it wants to engage Beijing and will not play down disagreements with China over human rights, religious freedom and freedom of expression — State Department spokesman Ian Kelly recently emphasised that human rights would be "at the centre" of the US relationship with China — critics say the president's postponement of the meeting with the Dalai Lama goes against this professed policy.
Obama has also broken a near two-decade-old practice of past American presidents receiving the Dalai Lama.
Many critics also feel that the recent Nobel Peace Prize award will heap pressure on Obama, who will have to "live up to the expectations that are attached to the Nobel Peace Prize". In his quest for peace, the charismatic and still popular president may be driven to take what is described as a ‘soft approach' and even pander to the world's despots, including the Beijing regime, which frequently uses brute force to crush even the slightest opposition and is accused of trying to eliminate the cultures of its ethnic minorities.
Take the example of Tibet, which received some 4.75 million tourists from January to September this year. The bulk of the tourists comprised Han Chinese, whose population in Tibet now exceeds that of ethnic Tibetans, creating an international outcry over the ‘cultural genocide' systematically practised by the Beijing regime against the indigenous population. More than 1.2 million Tibetans have lost their lives opposing mainland China since the latter seized Tibet in 1950 and forced the Dalai Lama to escape to India in 1959.
Tibet lovers and supporters, whose ranks are growing by the day not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world, will be closely watching Obama's visit to China and his actions on Tibet.
Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.
