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
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS