Friday, February 19, 2010

Obama Meets Dalai Lama, and China Is Quick to Protest


The Dali Lama recently visited the White House to meet with President Obama. The two reportedly talked about human rights, democracy and the need to preserve Tibet's religious identity and culture. China was "strongly dissatisfied" with this gesture. The Chinese foreign minister accused Obama of "seriously damaging" the ties between the two countries. Some cite Obama's move as evidence of the United States taking a more muscular stance toward China. The administration, however, kept the meeting low-key, not allowing reporters to take pictures. The Dali Lama, who has been living in exile in India because of the Chinese army crushing an uprising in his homeland, says he only advocates genuine autonomy for Tibet, not independence.

This article surfaces the long-standing issue of Tibetan autonomy. Obviously, Obama's gesture of inviting the Dali Lama to visit the White House could be perceived by China as a threat toward their authority over that area. From a liberal perspective, Obama did this with purely peaceful intentions, perhaps with enlightenment ideals in mind. He simply wants to have good relations with Tibet and the Dali Lama. China, however, does not think both good relations with Tibet and China can be possible. Therefore, they viewed this gesture as a threat to their power and an intentional move by the States to assert their influence in an unstable area of China.
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5 comments:

  1. gflemingFebruary 19, 2010 at 1:33 PM

    I agree with you that it definitely appears to be more of a cultural visit opposed to a political visit. The White House played up the Dali Lama's cultural achievements rather than his political ties to Tibet. However, the timing of this meeting makes me wonder if there is a political motive that the Dali Lama is just a smaller part of. The meeting, along with the arms deal to Taiwan, seems to be the US' way of asserting its power toward China. It is almost like recognizing the China could pose a threat to the US, and the US is showing China that it can do whatever it wants. So while the actual meeting might have been cultural and not political, the overall affect could have helps the US assert its power against China.

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  2. Lora MarieFebruary 20, 2010 at 11:37 AM

    I also wrote about this a few days ago,and I do agree that it seemed to be more of a culturally-oriented visit rather than political. I also agree, however, that the timing of the Dalai Lama's visit was inopportune. With all the already existing tension between China and the U.S. over Taiwan [look at my blog post for more information on that], I think having the Dalai Lama as a visitor strained the situation even further. However, I do agree that this can be seen as the United State's asserting its power against China. With its growing population and economy, China is becoming more of a threat to the United States. So acting against China's best interest could be potentially beneficial to the U.S.

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  3. calbanFebruary 21, 2010 at 9:08 AM

    I agree with you both that the meeting appears to be nothing more than a cultural meeting. However because of recent events involving the United States such as the arms deal to Taiwan it may have been perceived by China to be an assertion of the United States power. This is specially significant as the United States has been pressuring China to adopt stronger economic sanctions against Iran due to their uranium enrichment program as well as their failure to diminish counterfeit money and terrorist funding. Thus if this were to be observed through a realist perspective Obama may have visited the Dali Lama in response to China's reluctance to impose greater sanctions on Iran as the United States would have another ally (even if not strong) against China. However if observed through a liberalist perspective then the United States may have been simply seeking international cooperation. What is interesting to observe is how a simple gesture may have such great consequences.

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  4. Anna M.February 21, 2010 at 6:00 PM

    While I agree that the meeting was mostly of a cultural nature, I think it is impossible to completely take the politics out of the situation. I'm not sure the US intentionally tried to rile China by the meeting (although they had to know that China would be displeased). It was carried out in a very private way (unlike in 2007 when President Bush publicly attended a ceremony where Congress awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor), and as the article points out great care was made to avoid the appearance that it was a meeting between heads to state. If the goal really was to assert something to China, it could have been carried out in a different way. I do think it is worth pointing out that Obama was greatly criticized in the fall for not meeting with the Dalai Lama (presumably the reason was out of respect for China). I agree with Grace's comments. I think it is possible that this wasn't an "offensive" act towards China, but rather "defensive"; the US wanted to give the message that they didn't want to intentionally offend China but that they weren't going to be intimidated, either.

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  5. Sarah O'ConnorFebruary 21, 2010 at 8:12 PM

    Tibet is also a very resource-rich country, so it would be to the benefit of the United States to remove its wealth from the control of china and form an economic relationship with an autonomous Tibet, assuming a realist zero-sum power tension perspective. Such motives could be easily masked by human rights dialogue. I would hope that the United States is motivated by humanitarian ideals in its dealings with Tibet and China, but it is also possible that liberal rhetoric could mask more strategic designs not undertaken in the interests of international cooperation, which Carlos mentioned.

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