By Mayank Chhaya, IANS,
The postponement of the Dalai Lama’s first meeting with President Barack Obama highlights the chalk line that the latter is forced to walk on all issues these days.
After The Washington Post broke the story about the delay in the meeting between the two as having been necessitated by Washington’s “attempts to gain favor with China” the Dalai Lama’s special envoy in Washington, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, issued a statement remarkably accommodating of the decision.
“His Holiness will not be meeting with President Obama on this visit. From the outset, there has been no question of President Obama not at the appropriate time meeting His Holiness, whom he holds in great esteem. Taking a broader and long-term perspective, His Holiness agreed to meet the President after the November US-China Summit,” Gyari said.
“The Dalai Lama has always been supportive of American engagement with China. Our hope is that the cooperative US-Chinese relationship that President Obama’s administration seeks will create conditions that support the resolution of the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people,” the statement said.
It said the recent visit of a high-level delegation headed by Obama’s senior advisor and close friend Valerie Jarrett, accompanied by Under Secretary Maria Otero, Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, to meet with the Dalai Lama, “indicates a new approach on Tibet by the US administration.”
“His Holiness conveyed to the President’s emissaries that he looks forward to meeting with the President later this year and thanks the President for his invitation,” Gyari said.
Unless the Tibetans have some private assurances from the Obama administration that the president would take special care to raise the resolution of the Tibetan question during his first official visit to Beijing in November, for now the postponement can only be seen as strategic capitulation by Washington.
Apart from the fact that China is the single largest buyer of US treasury debt and Washington would be terribly hard-pressed were Beijing to call some of that, the Obama administration also has the question of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme uppermost in its mind from the perspective of seeking Chinese help. Beijing is an important player in heading off Tehran’s barely concealed quest for nuclear weapons.
During her first visit to China as Secretary of State in February this year, Hillary Rodham Clinton had consciously avoided raising the Tibetan issue or the question of human rights. She had gone to the extent of saying that the question of human rights could not “interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crisis.” So focussed was she on China’s role in controlling US debt that she had said, “By continuing to support American treasury instruments, the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together.”
China has invested 70 percent of its $2 trillion foreign exchange reserves in dollar assets and is worried about the meltdown in the US. In fact, Chinese leaders have wondered aloud about America’s creditworthiness. In March, China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was quoted as saying, “We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States, and of course we are concerned about the security of our assets.”
Considering the convergence of such adverse circumstances the Obama administration is disinclined to annoy China by meeting the Dalai Lama weeks before the US-China summit. It is unlikely that China, which routinely objects to anyone of any standing meeting with the Dalai Lama anywhere, would have expected such a major concession from the Obama administration. Obama and his advisors could well spin the postponement of the meeting with the Dalai Lama as a significant gesture to Beijing’s sensitivities and perhaps extract diplomatic advantages in other areas.
On their side, Gyari’s statement appeared to have been prompted by a wish among the Tibetans not to embarrass President Obama at a time when he is battling on several national and international fronts. A meeting between the Dalai Lama and Obama in November in the wake of the latter’s China visit may turn out to be more fruitful for the Tibetans, although not a lot of hope should be invested when Beijing is not particularly inclined to resolve the five-decade old issue.
(07-10-2009-Mayank Chhaya is the editor of South Asia Daily in the US. He can be contacted at [email protected])