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

 
 
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:31 am
@dlowan,
dlowan wrote:
Politics and nuance aside, do you have a general ethical position on this?


On Tibet? Or on pressuring other countries? Or on which path to take in the situations you outlined?
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:32 am
@Robert Gentel,
Yes. Absolutely.

But I am wondering where you think the line to be?
0 Replies
 
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:36 am
@Robert Gentel,
Quote:
on pressuring other countries?



This.


Edit:

That's WAY too general.


On pressuring the leaders of other countries about whom they see.
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:37 am
@dlowan,
dlowan wrote:
Strategic value being a guesstimate, of course?


Yes, of course. It's a lot of guesswork. We have no idea what kind of cooperation China would forgo for this issue. I would guess that it would be something along the lines of not helping the US when it comes to Iran.

We can also only guess what effect pressuring China to cede Tibet, or give them autonomy would have. My guess is that it would just lead to strained relations, providing Tibet nothing and us less cooperation on all fronts.
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:38 am
@dlowan,
I think that there is nothing at all wrong with pressuring other countries, it generates resentment though, and this needs to be weighted as part of the consequences.

And specifically, pressuring other countries about who they talk to is a basic part of the diplomatic playbook. Isolating people diplomatically is part and parcel of geopolitics.
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:43 am
@Robert Gentel,
Yes, a guess.

I find it concerning that our countries are allowing China the same "bully pulpit" (hope I understand the meaning of this correctly, it's not a term I am used to) re what is acceptable/unacceptable behaviour that was previously accorded any number of cruel and corrupt governments.


I edited your question above re what I am asking, btw...to make it clearer.


dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:45 am
@Robert Gentel,
Robert Gentel wrote:

I think that there is nothing at all wrong with pressuring other countries, it generates resentment though, and this needs to be weighted as part of the consequences.

And specifically, pressuring other countries about who they talk to is a basic part of the diplomatic playbook. Isolating people diplomatically is part and parcel of geopolitics.


Yes, and I agree.

My government, with the support of the ANC, pressured the South African government.


Do you see this as a moral equivalent?


roger
 
  2  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 12:59 am
@dlowan,
You misunderstand the term, but so does nearly everyone else who uses it. It's "Bully" as in real good. It's not used like 'schoolyard bully'. Teddy Roosevelt thought the presidency was a really good pulpit.
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 01:11 am
Actually, I'm starting to see "the Dalai Lama issue" as a bit of a red herring. If China is actually successful in ostracizing him on the world political stage, on the basis of not being a "legitimate" representative of Tibetan Buddhists (who do, BTW, have legitimate human rights issues) , then China will have successfully silenced the major voice representing Tibetan Buddhists. (The question of whether he is "elected" or not is immaterial, in my opinion - do the Tibetans have any democratic right to elect anyone to represent their particular concerns under Chinese rule?)
I also think the Chinese "line" on Tibet (getting better & better all the time under their rule) would have a LOT more credibility if they allowed journalists into the country to report on what is actually happening there. Which they won't allow, despite repeated requests .
In the meantime, we are expected to simply take their word that everything's just fine in Tibet! If you read the internet blogs of exiled Tibetans & also Amnesty International updates on Tibet, things are definitely not quite as the Chinese authorities would have us believe.
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 02:00 am
@dlowan,
dlowan wrote:
My government, with the support of the ANC, pressured the South African government.

Do you see this as a moral equivalent?


I don't know what kind of pressure you are talking about, so if your question is whether the pressure exerted was morally equivalent I don't know.

If your question is whether the motivations are morally equivalent then, no, I don't think so. I assume you are talking about the pariah status that helped end apartheid, and I don't equate that with China's desire not to lose control of Tibet.
0 Replies
 
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 02:48 am
@msolga,
msolga wrote:
Actually, I'm starting to see "the Dalai Lama issue" as a bit of a red herring. If China is actually successful in ostracizing him on the world political stage, on the basis of not being a "legitimate" representative of Tibetan Buddhists (who do, BTW, have legitimate human rights issues) , then China will have successfully silenced the major voice representing Tibetan Buddhists. (The question of whether he is "elected" or not is immaterial, in my opinion - do the Tibetans have any democratic right to elect anyone to represent their particular concerns under Chinese rule?)


Nobody said those were China's reasons. They ostracize him because they don't want their territory separated and for the same reasons you want him more visible they want him less.

The point of that was why he just isn't on the same level as Chavez et al that McGentrix was trying to equate him with. He was saying that by not meeting him we are failing to recognize or respect a "world leader" and contrasted it to several heads of state. My point is that the Dalai Lama isn't recognized as a head of state by any country and his "government in exile" isn't recognized by any country as the legitimate government of Tibet.

So delaying a meeting just doesn't fail to recognize his legitimacy as leader of Tibet, because we and every other country on earth already fail to do so. Tibet doesn't meet either the constitutive theory of statehood or the declarative theory of statehood.

Quote:
I also think the Chinese "line" on Tibet (getting better & better all the time under their rule) would have a LOT more credibility if they allowed journalists into the country to report on what is actually happening there. Which they won't allow, despite repeated requests .
In the meantime, we are expected to simply take their word that everything's just fine in Tibet! If you read the internet blogs of exiled Tibetans & also Amnesty International updates on Tibet, things are definitely not quite as the Chinese authorities would have us believe.


More freedom of press would certainly be a good thing, but it's pretty clear that they are improving on these issues. During the 2008 uprising some Tibetans were burning Han Chinese alive and rioting, and it took China a lot longer to crack down than they would have in the past and their crackdown was a lot softer than it would have been in the past.

But that doesn't mean that everything is "just fine", Tibetans want independence and they aren't going to get it and this causes conflict with the Han Chinese that are being settled in Tibet by China to change the "facts on the ground". The Dalai Lama calls it "cultural genocide" and there is certainly a lot of truth to their complaints about minority oppression (religious, educational, etc). The Tibetans hate the Han Chinese in the region and the Han Chinese hate the Tibetans, there is undeniable ethnic conflict and human rights abuses on both sides. The pro-Tibetan crowd doesn't like to own up to it, but the "protesters" shot are often rioters who murdered police or Han Chinese civilians.

And before you say that this is just the Chinese account of it, no it is not, this is corroborated by several westerners who were present at the time. The Tibetans were attacking and murdering Han Chinese for hours before the Chinese government started firing on the "protesters".

Here is a Canadian traveler's first hand account of the attacks on Han Chinese:

'I can't just let this guy die on the ground'

Quote:
A traveller from Toronto was walking on Beijing Road in Lhasa on Friday afternoon when he saw a crowd of Tibetans beating a young Han Chinese man and two women.

As he watched, stunned, the crowd with sticks and metal clubs beat the man, about 20, until he fell to the ground unconscious.


Economist reporter James Miles was on the scene when the ethnic violence erupted and gave this CNN interview:

Quote:
What I saw was calculated targeted violence against an ethnic group, or I should say two ethnic groups, primarily ethnic Han Chinese living in Lhasa, but also members of the Muslim Hui minority in Lhasa. And the Huis in Lhasa control much of the meat industry in the city. Those two groups were singled out by ethnic Tibetans. They marked those businesses that they knew to be Tibetan owned with white traditional scarves. Those businesses were left intact. Almost every single other across a wide swathe of the city, not only in the old Tibetan quarter, but also beyond it in areas dominated by the ethnic Han Chinese. Almost every other business was either burned, looted, destroyed, smashed into, the property therein hauled out into the streets, piled up, burned. It was an extraordinary outpouring of ethnic violence of a most unpleasant nature to watch, which surprised some Tibetans watching it. So they themselves were taken aback at the extent of what they saw. And it was not just targeted against property either. Of course many ethnic Han Chinese and Huis fled as soon as this broke out. But those who were caught in the early stages of it were themselves targeted. Stones thrown at them. At one point, I saw them throwing stones at a boy of maybe around 10 years old perhaps cycling along the street. I in fact walked out in front of them and said stop. It was a remarkable explosion of simmering ethnic grievances in the city.


He corroborates that the Chinese response was muted and delayed:

Quote:
Well the Chinese response to this was very interesting. Because you would expect at the first sings of any unrest in Lhasa, which is a city on a knife-edge at the best of times. That the response would be immediate and decisive. That they would cordon off whatever section of the city involved, that they would grab the people involved in the unrest. In fact what we saw, and I was watching it at the earliest stages, was complete inaction on the part of the authorities. It seemed as if they were paralyzed by indecision over how to handle this. The rioting rapidly spread from Beijing Road, this main central thoroughfare of Lhasa, into the narrow alleyways of the old Tibetan quarter. But I didn't see any attempt in those early hours by the authorities to intervene. And I suspect again the Olympics were a factor there. That they were very worried that if they did move in decisively at that early stage of the unrest that bloodshed would ensue in their efforts to control it. And what they did instead was let the rioting run its course and it didn't really finish as far as I saw until the middle of the day on the following day on the Saturday, March the 15th. So in effect what they did was sacrifice the livelihoods of many, many ethnic Han Chinese in the city for the sake of letting the rioters vent their anger. And then being able to move in gradually with troops with rifles that they occasionally let off with single shots, apparently warning shots, in order to scare everybody back into their homes and put an end to this.



The media blackout doesn't just hide Chinese human rights abuses, it also serves to make the human rights abuses of Tibetans harder to report on.

Here is the Wall Street Journal reporting on Chinese being burned alive in the rioting that they could not corroborate directly (but that I believe given the accounts of arson that were corroborated):

Quote:
In the early afternoon of March 14, the day the capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region erupted in violence, a crowd of Tibetans broke into the clothing store owned by Mr. Peng's girlfriend's family, doused stacks of shirts and jackets with gasoline and set the piles on fire, says Mr. Peng. The details of his story couldn't be independently corroborated.

Mr. Peng's girlfriend, Liu Juan, and her parents, Liu Guobing and Wang Xinping, were hiding upstairs. As the fire spread, Mr. Liu and Ms. Wang jumped from a second-story window. Ms. Liu, who was 20 years old and the mother of their 9-month-old son, apparently was overcome by the smoke. Her body was found inside the burned-out shop the next day, says Mr. Peng, who wasn't in Lhasa at the time of the attack.

Mr. Peng spoke in a telephone interview Monday from Mr. Liu's bedside in the First People's Hospital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in Lhasa. Mr. Peng, 24 years old, says he related events as described to him by Mr. Liu. Mr. Liu, who is being treated for spinal injuries, was unable to speak on the phone.

Cases such as the Liu family's are fueling anger against Tibetans among the Han Chinese, the country's predominant ethnic group. Han are also voicing frustration with foreign media, which they feel are ignoring their suffering and instead focusing on Tibetans' grievances with the Chinese government.


China's response to this violence against the Hans and Muslims was more muted than it should have been and more muted than it would have been in the past. They have come a long way since Tiananmen and a big reason is their increasing engagement with the rest of the world.
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:15 pm
@Robert Gentel,
Quote:
I think that there is nothing at all wrong with pressuring other countries, it generates resentment though, and this needs to be weighted as part of the consequences.

And specifically, pressuring other countries about who they talk to is a basic part of the diplomatic playbook. Isolating people diplomatically is part and parcel of geopolitics.


Sure, it's a reality of political life, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing at all wrong with pressuring other countries, or that such pressure shouldn't be questioned. Or opposed, even, when the pressure appears to be unreasonable. Particularly when the likely intention is to stifle legitimate debate or comment about the actions of the country applying the pressure.
The reality is that only powerful nations (like the US & China, etc) are in a position to apply such pressure , due to their power & influence over "weaker" nations. And this can generate much more serious consequences than just "resentment". It can lead to the intimidation of weaker nations to not speak out about legitimate concerns, like abuses of human rights, for example. (An example: for years Australia (a "small fry" nation in the grand scheme of things) did not speak out officially against the invasion of East Timor, although we knew (largely through the efforts of our press) of the atrocities that were occurring there & we knew there was fierce opposition from the East Timorese to the "Indonesian-ization" of their country. The official Indonesian line was that East Timor was a part of Indonesia & that any interference by Australia (or any other country) was unacceptable meddling into Indonesian sovereign affairs. Also that Indonesian investment & development programs in East Timor had lead to vast material improvements in that country. (Which the East Timorese argued was of more benefit to the huge influx of Javanese-Indonesians into into East Timor since the invasion. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) For years Australia appeased Indonesia, out of fear of the consequences & also because it was believed to be in our interests to have a good working relationship with our more powerful neighbour. However, while successive Australian governments & diplomats kowtowed to Indonesian pressure, Australian people certainly didn't, & eventually East Timor gained it's independence in a democratic election & Australia was a major part of the UN peace-keeping force in there. Sure, our relationship with Indonesia suffered as a result (though it appears to be much-improved now), but was it worth it? I'd argue that most of us believe it was & that we should have taken a more principled "official" position in the first place!)
hawkeye10
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:20 pm
Some people still refuse to believe that China will go to the ends of the earth to rub TiBet out. Tibet is over, it is now a province of China and will be for a very long time. Nobody has the power to change this, China will get what it wants because they want this very badly, and they have the power to make it happen.
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:22 pm
@msolga,
I should now, of course, call East Timor by it's official, post-independence name:

Quote:
Timor-Leste (Tetum: Timor Lorosae; officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:27 pm
@hawkeye10,
It seems more a matter of how much autonomy the Tibetans can achieve (under Chinese rule), than independence, these days.
hawkeye10
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:31 pm
@msolga,
it is already decided that the Tibetan culture will be killed. The Chinese are doing the frog in hot water trick, killing Tibet as fast as possible without generating a backlash. Give the locals just enough that they will not revolt, all the while turning the screws.

Bye-Bye Tibet, it was nice to know you.
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 06:29 pm
@Robert Gentel,
Quote:
Nobody said those were China's reasons. They ostracize him because they don't want their territory separated and for the same reasons you want him more visible they want him less


I'll concede that, Robert. Officially he is referred to as a "splittist" influence on the Chinese nation. I think it could be argued, though, that they don't accept his legitimacy as a legitimate representative of the Tibetans. Nor do they readily accept any criticism of Chinese rule in Tibet, no matter who or where it's coming from. I support his activities because he's the most vocal spokesperson for Tibetan Buddhists. They have genuine grievances which should be heard.

Quote:
But that doesn't mean that everything is "just fine", Tibetans want independence and they aren't going to get it and this causes conflict with the Han Chinese that are being settled in Tibet by China to change the "facts on the ground". The Dalai Lama calls it "cultural genocide" and there is certainly a lot of truth to their complaints about minority oppression (religious, educational, etc). The Tibetans hate the Han Chinese in the region and the Han Chinese hate the Tibetans, there is undeniable ethnic conflict and human rights abuses on both sides. The pro-Tibetan crowd doesn't like to own up to it, but the "protesters" shot are often rioters who murdered police or Han Chinese civilians.

And before you say that this is just the Chinese account of it, no it is not, this is corroborated by several westerners who were present at the time. The Tibetans were attacking and murdering Han Chinese for hours before the Chinese government started firing on the "protesters".

Here is a Canadian traveler's first hand account of the attacks on Han Chinese:

'I can't just let this guy die on the ground'


I don't condone the violence toward the Han Chinese & I'm certainly not denying it happened. However, given the tensions at the time, say nothing of the frustrations of the Tibetans for decades, I'm not at all surprised at what did occur. Here's another account of the violence, & an assessment of the reasons behind it, from a group of Chinese scholar & academics. :



Report Says Valid Grievances at Root of Tibet Unrest

By EDWARD WONG
Published: June 5, 2009/NYT


DHARAMSALA, India " A group of prominent Chinese lawyers and legal scholars have released a research report arguing that the Tibetan riots and protests of March 2008 were rooted in legitimate grievances brought about by failed government policies " and not through a plot of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

The lengthy paper is the result of interviews conducted over a month in two Tibetan regions. It represents the first independent investigation into the causes of the widespread protests, which the Chinese government harshly suppressed. The government blamed the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala for the unrest.

Quote:
The government has quashed the expression of any dissenting opinions on the causes of the protests, which spread quickly across western China. The research paper was quietly posted last month on Chinese Web sites, and an English translation was released this week by the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group based in Washington.

The authors of the report are members of a Chinese group called Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative, which seeks to promote legal reform in China. Lawyers in the group also tried to file lawsuits on behalf of families whose babies suffered in the tainted milk scandal last year, and two members have defended Tibetans in court this year.

The authors of the report concluded that Chinese government policies had promoted a form of economic modernization in Tibet that left many Tibetans feeling increasingly disenfranchised over the decades. The researchers found that Tibetans had enormous difficulty finding work in their homeland, while ethnic Han Chinese migrants seemed to have a monopoly on jobs in restaurants, hotels and stores. When violent rioting broke out in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on March 14, 2008, after four days of peaceful protests, businesses owned by Chinese were looted and burned. At least 19 people were killed, most of them Han Chinese.

“An important perspective for interpreting the 3/14 incident is that it was reaction made under stress by a society and people to the various changes that have been taking place in their lives over the past few decades,” the report said. “The notion that appears impossible to understand is the implication that reasonable demands were being vented, and this is precisely what we need to understand and reflect upon.”

The report also said: “When the land you’re accustomed to living in, and the land of the culture you identify with, when the lifestyle and religiosity is suddenly changed into a ‘modern city’ that you no longer recognize; when you can no longer find work in your own land, and feel the unfairness of lack of opportunity, and when you realize that your core value systems are under attack, then the Tibetan people’s panic and sense of crisis is not difficult to understand.”


The Dalai Lama said in an interview last week that migration by ethnic Han Chinese to the Tibetan plateau was one of the main threats to the future of Tibet, and he contended that the government in Beijing should allow a regional autonomous authority run by Tibetans to limit future migration as well as make policy on education, language and use of natural resources.

“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place,” he said.

Chinese leaders have long said that the Dalai Lama ruled over a feudal system that kept a majority of Tibetans enslaved. They argue that when the Chinese Communist Party dissolved the old Tibetan government in March 1959, about a million Tibetan serfs were set free.

The report also cast blame on the governing structure in Tibetan regions, saying that there had been problems adapting Tibetan culture and society to the “ruling state’s systems.” It also criticized the central government for putting into power incompetent Tibetan local officials who, the researchers said, play up the threat of separatist movements to acquire more power and money from Beijing.

The report quoted Phuntsok Wangyal, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet, as saying, “They are unable to admit their mistakes and instead put all of their effort into shifting accountability onto ‘hostile foreign forces.’ ”


Xu Zhiyong, a member of Gongmeng, said in a telephone interview that the report had been submitted to the government, but that there had been no response.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/world/asia/06tibet.html
talk72000
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 06:46 pm
@msolga,
I have never said I was a 'human eights' advocate. It is a rather sangtimonious organization that only oversees non-English countries. You have no idea of the history of China either. China did not invade Tibet. The Mongols invaded China and Tibet and thus Mongolia and Tibet became part of China as the Mongols took over China. Australia was not even on the European map. With your name Olga you are either Ukrainian or Russian. Your people suffered from the Huns and Mongols when they invaded Europe but they are not Chinese. You probably have that Yellow Hordes mentality and applying it to China. Chinese and Tibetans share the East Asian Y Haplogroup marker so they in a way Chinese. They haven't treated Tibetans the way white Australians have treated the Aboriginals. Dalai Lama is anti-abortion and anti-homosexual but he doesn't let the West know his views. His move out of his homeland is a political action not a religious one. Most Buddhists don't share his views only the those in the west who recent converted feel it is cool to back a pariah Buddhist aristocrat like Dalai Lama. Of course, he has taken millions of CIA money.
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 06:49 pm
As to the US's new diplomatic approach toward human rights concerns in Tibet. I'm not holding my breath. It sounds like the same-old same-old Chinese attitude to the situation to me.:

China to US lawmakers: Stay out of its internal affairs
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-09 17:47/China Daily


BEIJING: A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday urged some United States law-makers to stop "intervening" in China's domestic affairs in the name of Tibet.

Quote:
"Tremendous progress has taken place in Tibet's social and economic aspects since its democratic reform and the human rights situation there is the best in history," spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

Ma's remarks came after the Dalai Lama on Tuesday received a US Congress award in honor of the late US human rights activist Tom Lantos.

"The Chinese people know well about Dalai, a primary chief of the feudal serfdom in old Tibet, who is still running programs to divide the homeland and sabotage social stability and unity among nations in Tibet," Ma said.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/09/content_8773085.htm
0 Replies
 
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 07:19 pm
@msolga,
msolga wrote:
Sure, it's a reality of political life, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing at all wrong with pressuring other countries, or that such pressure shouldn't be questioned. Or opposed, even, when the pressure appears to be unreasonable. Particularly when the likely intention is to stifle legitimate debate or comment about the actions of the country applying the pressure.


My point was that I don't see anything inherently wrong with pressuring other countries for diplomatic isolation. Many folk instinctively feel otherwise under the ole "mind your business" concept but that ignores a lot of how the world works and how it should work.

You seem to be saying that particular pressures can be wrong based on the aims they have, and I have no disagreement with that.

Quote:
For years Australia appeased Indonesia, out of fear of the consequences & also because it was believed to be in our interests to have a good working relationship with our more powerful neighbour. However, while successive Australian governments & diplomats kowtowed to Indonesian pressure, Australian people certainly didn't, & eventually East Timor gained it's independence in a democratic election & Australia was a major part of the UN peace-keeping force in there. Sure, our relationship with Indonesia suffered as a result (though it appears to be much-improved now), but was it worth it? I'd argue that most of us believe it was & that we should have taken a more principled "official" position in the first place!)


I have no argument with that, quite frankly in that case I think you guys could have gotten away with more pressure on Indonesia myself all along, these are very arguable guesstimates about what diplomatic tactics to take. Thing is, while the risks of strained relationships are hard to measure, the lack of much upside is easier to measure. Without carrots and sticks merely speaking out doesn't tend to do much other than raise nationalism and strain relations on both sides. There's usually very little value and this is why "diplospeak" is usually so very muted (from countries that are good at it, you'll find just outrageous stuff from countries like North Korea). In diplomacy, everything tends to be very muted. Tiny differences in wording are parsed endlessly. In diplomacy, if you are going to criticize a country it uses a lot of diplomatic capital. Things like who you meet first are things that make a difference, it's a very delicate little game where you try to get an advantage out of every statement and every meeting.

But that being said, I also think you guys can get away with more pressure on China, it's mainly just a trade relationship for you guys, and harming it would shoot both countries in the foot. However the US has much trickier things that we need Chinese cooperation on. Such as Iran and North Korea.

Without Chinese cooperation on Iran there will be no sanctions. I prefer Chinese cooperation to what the hawks propose (e.g. Israeli unilateral bombing). I think that the value of Chinese cooperation for the US right now far exceeds the value of meeting with the Dalai Lama. China has a fait accompli in Tibet, there's really no diplomatic upside to meeting with the Dalai Lama, other than making folk like you happy. It's an empty principled stand, that brings us nothing but a more difficult path going forward.
0 Replies
 
 

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