Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama 'to keep China happy'

Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama

'to keep China happy'

President Barack Obama has refused to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this week

in a move to curry favour with the Chinese.

A White House official said the administration and the Tibetans had "agreed the timing would be best after the visit".

"Both sides attach importance to a strong US-China relationship," the official said. "There are benefits in that to our goals for Tibet, as we have been working to resume discussions between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives.”

Apparent supposition. The phrase "to keep China happy" only occurs in the headline; it is not a quote from anyone in the article.

Now if we can get Obama to snub the pope I'd be even happier.

CHINA has entered the debate over the Dalai Lama's visit to Australia, warning Western nations to beware of his "splittist" tendencies.

"The words and deeds of the Dalai Lama in the past decade have shown he is not purely a religious figure but a political exile … aimed at splitting China," said a foreign ministry spokeswoman.

"He represents forces advocating Tibet's independence which the Chinese Government and people resolutely oppose."

She did not mention Australia by name, but was responding to a question from The Age about the possibility that Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd will both meet the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Mr Howard is yet to accept an invitation to meet the Buddhist leader of Chinese-controlled Tibet.

Mr Rudd has said he will try to make room to meet him after initially saying he would not. This prompted Mr Howard to label Mr Rudd a hypocrite, given that he had previously attacked Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer for snubbing the Dalai Lama, who is vocal on human rights abuses in his country .....

....Melbourne international film festival's Richard Moore fielded a phone call from an angry cultural attaché at the Chinese consulate in the city, over the inclusion of the film about businesswoman Kadeer. Beijing accuses her of instigating the ethnic violence responsible for the deaths of a reported 184 people in Xinjiang province earlier this month. She is the focus of the documentary The 10 Conditions of Love, which will premiere at the festival on 8 August.

Moore said he was surprised to receive the call from attaché Chunmei Chen, apparently a new arrival in Melbourne, reeling off a list of Kadeer's alleged crimes.

"We had a strident conversation," Moore said. "Ms Chen urged me to withdraw the film from the festival and told me I had to justify my actions in programming it. I told her that under no circumstances would I withdraw the film, that I had no reason to do so. I don't need to justify my actions, unless it's in relation to our own sense of morals....