The White House postponed a meeting between the Dalai Lama and US President Barack Obama until after Obama’s meeting with Chinese leader Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) next month, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
The Post said it would be the first time since 1991 that the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington and not meet the US president. He has visited Washington 10 times over that time span.
Citing unnamed government officials, diplomats and other sources, the report said the move appeared to be aimed at improving ties with China and softening criticism of its human rights abuses and financial policies.
Before visiting China in February, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said advocacy for human rights could not “interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crisis.”
Human rights advocates criticized her for the statement.
PUBLIC MEETING
During the Dalai Lama’s last visit in 2007, former US president George W. Bush met him publicly at the Capitol to award him the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian award.
Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, an inveterate traveler at age 74, was set to arrive in the US capital after two weeks of touring around North America that featured spiritual teachings and an appearance with fellow Nobel laureates.
China has been ramping up pressure on other nations not to receive the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who prefers to describe himself as a simple Buddhist monk.
Explaining the reluctance to meet the Dalai Lama now, US officials told Tibetan representatives that they wanted to work with China on critical issues, including nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea and Iran, the Post reported.
Activists said they expected a meeting to take place by the end of the year and expressed hopes Obama would raise the question of Tibet in China.
MESSAGE
Some Tibet supporters are nevertheless fuming.
“What would a Buddhist monk or Buddhist nun in Drapchi prison think when he heard that President Obama, the president of the United States, is not going to meet with the Dalai Lama?” asked Frank Wolf, a Republican congressman and outspoken critic of China’s human rights record. “It’s against the law to even have a picture of the Dalai Lama. I can almost hear the words of the Chinese guards saying to them that nobody cares about you in the United States.”
Tibetan prime minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche accused the US and other Western nations of “appeasement” toward China as its economic weight grows.
Obama, who met with the Dalai Lama when he was a US senator, has been seeking a broader relationship with China, which is the biggest holder of the ballooning US debt.
In Washington, the Dalai Lama will see congressional leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longstanding supporter of the Tibetan cause.
He also plans to present an award to a group of Chinese who have tried to build bridges with Tibetans. Organizers declined to identify the honorees beforehand, fearing it could put them at personal risk.
Also See: EDITORIAL: Obama blinks, freedom suffers
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would