Provoking China with the Dalai Lama

The U.S. has once again meddled in Chinese affairs with an “unscrupulous trick,” said the Beijing People’s Daily in an editorial. Last week, President Obama welcomed to the White House the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who is actually “a political exile engaged in separatist activities against China under the guise of religious practice.” Such gross interference in Chinese internal affairs is not only a violation of basic norms of international relations, but also a demonstration of the naïveté of U.S. officials. They are apparently fooled by the Dalai Lama’s insincere smile. Don’t they realize that Tibet under him was a feudal state, where all but the monks were treated as serfs? Tibet’s peaceful liberation by China in the 1950s “was a major historic event, with significance comparable to the liberation of black slaves in America, the abolition of slavery in Europe, and the end of the apartheid system in South Africa.” For the U.S. to continue to support the man who embodies the old, repressive system in Tibet is a poor choice indeed. It will surely harm U.S.-Chinese relations.

Does the Chinese leadership really believe that? asked Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The over-the-top reaction every time a Western leader meets with the Dalai Lama has become a tired routine: Chinese leaders act “aggressively offended,” as if “bitten by a political tarantula.” But why? It’s not as if Obama said he supported independence for Tibet. All he said was that he believed in human rights for Tibetans. And in fact, while the Chinese may rant and rave, they won’t actually take any action to punish the U.S. for Obama’s brief act of hospitality. “Will China, in revenge, stop buying U.S. Treasury bonds? Certainly not.”

While the government was right to protest the meeting, most Chinese simply shrugged, said the Beijing Global Times. Gone are the days when such a snub could make the people burn with anger. After all, the Dalai Lama “is essentially an outdated topic.” Tibet is stable and peaceful, and exiled Tibetan separatists have little influence there—particularly a leader like the Dalai Lama, who “ruled Tibet during the dark days of the serf system.” The U.S. can go ahead and continue trying to provoke us by meeting with him. China is now strong enough, and confident enough, to refuse to be baited. “The Dalai Lama is just a drop of spittle on China from the West.” We can brush it off.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

By focusing its ire on the aging Dalai Lama, China may have missed the more important development, said Saransh Sehgal in the Hong Kong Asia Times. There was another Tibetan spiritual leader in Washington at the same time: the Karmapa Lama. The 26-year-old monk is the third-highest lama, after the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, and the Dalai Lama has been explicitly grooming him as his successor. During their joint visit, the Dalai Lama introduced the Karmapa to “all major contacts in the United States.” Someday, the younger monk will be “the figurehead of Tibetan Buddhism.”