There was worldwide condemnation two years ago when South Africa denied the Dalai Lama a visa to join fellow Nobel Peace Laureates at an international peace conference in Johannesburg. The organizers ended up canceling the conference in protest. China just smiled….
But I’m on record – dating back to February 2005 in a commentary entitled China buying up political influence in the Caribbean – not only warning about the petty and vindictive lengths to which China would go to keep the Dalai Lama in check, but also decrying the extent to which far more powerful countries than South Africa seemed prepared to kowtow to it in this respect.
Apropos of this latter point:
Western leaders have made a mockery of their condemnation of the brutal crackdown on Tibetan monks by heeding China’s warning against meeting with the Dalai Lama in any official capacity. In fact, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeased the Chinese by refusing to meet with him at No. 10, choosing instead to meet only at the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This enabled Brown to claim that he was meeting the Dalai Lama “in a spiritual rather than political capacity”.
(Punishing China for its brutal crackdown on Tibet? Hardly…, The iPINIONS Journal, July 28, 2008)
Therefore, it was hardly surprising to me when South Africa caved two years ago. Nor is it surprising that it’s about to do the same again:
The South African government is considering blocking the Dalai Lama from attending the 80th birthday of fellow Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu so as not to offend China, according to opposition politicians.
Tutu has invited the Tibetan spiritual leader to give a lecture as part of his birthday celebrations in Cape Town on 8 October. Officials from the former archbishop’s office started the visa application process in June, but have yet to get approval for the Dalai Lama’s visit and fear it may not come
(London Guardian, September 27, 2011)
No doubt there is just cause to criticize the ways the U.S. and U.S.S.R. wielded their superpower during the Cold War. But China is giving every indication that it intends to wield its superpower in ways that make the way they lorded over their respective spheres of influence seem relatively genteel.
Mind you, its obsessive determination to blacklist the Dalai Lama would be understandable if he had the power of the Ayatollah of Iran. But he’s the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. Moreover, no less a person than the president of the United States has conceded that Tibet is a part of China. Not to mention that China has imposed de facto martial law over this region for the past 52 years for Christ’s sake!
They’re only directing that the Dalai Lama should be shunned today. But who knows what extraterritorial directive the Chinese will issue pursuant to their perceived national interest tomorrow…? Just consider for a moment what passive-aggressive hegemony they have in mind if they already presume that they can dictate who the president of the United States can invite to the White House….
(World beware: China calling in loan-sharking debts, The iPINIONS Journal, February 3, 2010)
Enough said.
Related commentaries:
World beware…
Countries queuing up…
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