US rejects China pressure over Dalai Lama meeting
Updated
China is warning United States President Barack Obama not to meet Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. While no date for the meeting has been set, the White House again confirmed that President Obama will meet the Dalai Lama. It comes in the wake of Beijing's annoyance over a US plan last week, to sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Ralph Cossa, president, Pacific Forum, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Hawaii
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COSSA: Well the rationale is that the US President always meets with the Dalai Lama, this is the US doing what the US does. The US considers the Dalai Lama to be a religious figure and they meet with him in that capacity. They do not see him as a 'splitist' and a 'troublemaker' as the Chinese call him. And this is long-standing US policy. What was different was Obama deferring the meeting last fall out of respect for the Chinese, which unfortunately the Chinese may have interpreted as weakness and now they feel that maybe they can use pressure to stop future meetings.
LAM: Do you think it's counter-productive from the Chinese point of view that Beijing tries to dictate whom the US can and cannot see?
COSSA: Well clearly it's counter-productive and it's inappropriate. The Chinese would call this interference in their internal affairs if the US were to protest when Robert Mugabe went to China or something like that. The Chinese would tell us it's none of our business, and that's the same in this capacity. If the Dalai Lama were to come in and give speeches on Tibetan independence then the Chinese might have a case, but if he's coming as a spiritual leader of the world's Buddhists, which everyone recognises him as, then the Chinese really have no case or even make themselves look sort of foolish.
LAM: The latest statement from Beijing regarding the planned meeting with the Dalai Lama comes on the back of China's annoyance with the US multi-billion dollar arms deal with Taiwan. Do you think generally the US-Sino relationship is heading down a fairly rocky path?
COSSA: Well the US-China relationship is always a roller coaster ride, sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low. The good news is that normally every administration starts off with a steep downward curve, that did not occur. China was not an issue in the last presidential election in the US, and as a result we were able to avoid that severe dip that normally occurs at the beginning of each administration. But at some point during the administration there's going to be arms sales to Taiwan, there are going to be visits with the Dalai Lama, there're going to be complaints about human rights and freedom of speech and what the Chinese are doing in Burma or Sudan or Iran or somewhere like that, so you're always going to have ups and downs. And yes it's very clear we are now beginning a downward trajectory and I don't think either one wants it to get out of hand or to become confrontational.
LAM: And the US senate is also planning a hearing next month to press IT and tech firms on practices in China, this is following Google's decision not to cooperate with Chinese censorship. Is that huge gap over human rights and free speech, that kind of fundamental philosophical difference between Beijing and Washington, can that be bridged?
COSSA: I mean the simple answer is no. I gave a presentation to a group of American Chinese recently and I said that we would be so much better off if each side stopped over-reacting when the other does things that are totally consistent with their past practices and policies. We are going to sell arms, the Chinese are going to have restrictions on freedom of speech and they're going to have other things. Neither side likes what the other one is doing, we ought to just sort of understand that that these are areas where we're going to continue doing what we're doing and as long we're remaining consistent the other side should be just sort of understanding. But invariably the Congress overreacts, the Chinese overreact. My view on foreign policy in the Congress has always been nothing makes things worse than an attempt by the Congress to make it better. They normally find some way to complicate foreign policy in order to feel good, that's always a problem. In some respects you know what we see the Chinese doing now is threatening to have sanctions against American firms. Well what play book did that they get that page out of - that's one of the favourite Congressional tricks and US tricks when somebody does deals with Cuba or deals with someone else we immediately try to sanction their company. So this is just sort of what goes around, comes around.
