February 22, 2014

CHINA CRITICIZES OBAMA OVER VISIT BY DALAI LAMA

[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.