[As a practical
matter, the Dalai Lama’s struggle for religious rights for his Tibetan minority
has little connection to the tangled disputes over tiny islands between China
and its neighbors. But by showing support for these countries, he and other
analysts said, the administration has changed the context for the Dalai Lama’s
White House meetings.]
By Mark Landler
 |
David Walter Banks for The New York Times
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, at Emory University in Atlanta last year. |
WASHINGTON
— President Obama welcomed the Dalai
Lama to the White House on Friday morning, provoking a sharp rebuke from the
Chinese government, which warned that the meeting would severely damage
relations between Washington and Beijing.
But this time, in contrast to
previous meetings, the White House seemed unruffled by the diplomatic
repercussions of the visit by the Tibetan spiritual leader, which comes as the
United States is taking a firmer line with China on a range of territorial
disputes with its neighbors.
Mr. Obama, the White
House said in a statement, reiterated in the meeting his support for the rights
and religious liberties of Tibetans in China. He called on the Chinese
government to resume a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in
India.
The 45-minute meeting
was held in the Map Room, not the Oval Office — a modest concession to the
Chinese, who view the Dalai Lama as an anti-China separatist. But that did not
prevent the Chinese Foreign Ministry from demanding that Mr. Obama cancel the
meeting altogether.
In a statement before
the meeting, the ministry’s spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said it would “grossly
interfere in the internal affairs of China, seriously violate norms governing international
relations, and severely impair China-U.S. relations.” The ministry issued an
almost verbatim denunciation after the meeting.
China used similar
language when Mr. Obama met with the Dalai Lama in February 2010 and July 2011.
The White House delayed the first meeting from October 2009 to avoid angering
the Chinese a month before the president’s inaugural trip to Beijing, drawing
criticism from human-rights activists and others for appeasing the Chinese.
This time, however,
the calendar was not an obstacle. Mr. Obama does not plan to visit China until
November, by which time “this meeting should be well in the rearview mirror,”
said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former senior China adviser in the National Security
Council.
“The White House
doesn’t invite him to visit at a particular time; it’s the reverse,” said Mr.
Bader, who is now at the Brookings Institution. “He decides when
he’s coming, and the White House decides if it is convenient, inconvenient or
really inconvenient to meet.”
Even if Mr. Obama was
going to China sooner than November, a senior administration official said, it
would not have gotten in the way of a meeting. The White House, the official
said, has concluded that pulling its punches with Beijing does not produce useful
results.
On major issues like
Iran, climate change and trade, analysts said, China’s decision about whether
to cooperate with the United States has little to do with whether Mr. Obama
meets with the Dalai Lama. Presidents have met with him periodically since the
elder George Bush.
If anything, the
president’s travel itinerary constitutes a further challenge to China. In
April, he will visit four Asian countries — Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines
and South Korea — that all have territorial disputes with China in the East
China Sea or the South China Sea.
The Philippines has
filed for arbitration with a United Nations tribunal of judges in a dispute
with China over claims in the South China Sea, while Japan and China have been
locked in an increasingly tense standoff over a clump of islands in the East
China Sea.
The United States,
which long steered clear of these disputes, is now demanding that China submit
to multilateral negotiations and international norms. That will be a
centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s message when he makes his first visit to the region
since late 2012.
“There is a major
shift in the international climate,” said Robert J. Barnett, the director of the modern
Tibet studies program at Columbia University. “The Americans have come out of
the shadows and said that China’s assertiveness in maritime issues is
disruptive. After many years of being cautious, the United States is speaking
out.”
As a practical matter,
the Dalai Lama’s struggle for religious rights for his Tibetan minority has
little connection to the tangled disputes over tiny islands between China and
its neighbors. But by showing support for these countries, he and other
analysts said, the administration has changed the context for the Dalai Lama’s
White House meetings.
“Being aggressive
toward the Dalai Lama only adds to the perception, or even the reality, that
China is overreaching itself in its maritime claims,” Mr. Barnett said.
None of this augurs a
change in American policy toward Tibet itself. Mr. Obama, in the meeting,
reaffirmed that the United States opposes Tibetan independence and views Tibet
as part of China. The Dalai Lama repeated that he has forsworn any demand for
independence.
Mr. Obama endorsed the
Dalai Lama’s Middle Way approach, which calls for neither assimilation nor
independence for Tibetans in China. The president also raised the issue of
self-immolation by protesting Buddhist monks, a practice that American
officials said they were pleased the Dalai Lama had begun to address publicly
after a long silence.
Still, there is a
limit to how much policy or geopolitics is discussed at these meetings, the
official said. For one, he said, the Dalai Lama does most of the talking,
offering the president his latest perspectives on truth, harmony and universal
values.
Lest anyone miss the
bigger picture, the White House concluded by noting that “the president and the
Dalai Lama agreed on the importance of a positive and constructive relationship
between the United States and China.”
Chris Buckley contributed reporting
from Hong Kong.
