Obama-Dalai meet angers China
PRESENT TENSE US prez defies Beijing even as latter said this could affect ties between two nations CHINA’S ALLEGATION
WASHINGTON/BEIJING: President Barack Obama received exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama at the White House here Friday morning ignoring angry Chinese demand to call off the meeting.
This was their third meeting, after 2010 and 2011. It was not immediately known what they discussed. But the White House said ahead of the meeting the president was receiving the Dalai Lama as an internationally respected religious and cultural leader.
National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said on Thursday the US doesn’t support Tibetan independence from China. But, she added, “We are concerned about continuing tensions and the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibetan areas of China.” And that the US continues to urge China to “resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions, as a means to China calls the Dalai Lama a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who seeks to use violent methods to establish an independent Tibet
SINO-US TIES
The US has expressed concern about China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the East China Sea and South China Sea and Obama’s US strategic pivot, or rebalancing, toward Asia, is seen as a reaction to the growing clout of China
At the same time, both countries are increasingly inter-dependent and have to cooperate on international issues such as Iran and North Korea
As of July 31, China held $1.28 trillion in the US treasury bonds.
reduce tensions”. Beijing has reacted with predictable anger, calling for the meeting to be cancelled. “By arranging a meeting between the President and the Dalai Lama, the US side will grossly interfere in the internal affairs of China,” foreign ministry The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959, maintains he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet and denies advocating violence.
CHINA’S RESPONSE
Diplomats in Beijing have said Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet at a nuclear security summit in the Netherlands next month
Hua said: “If any country deliberately insists on harming China’s interests, in the end, it will also damage its own interests and will harm the bilateral relations between China and the relevant country”
In 2011, after last meeting between the two, China responded with vehement words but stopped short of threatening retaliation.
spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement.
She added the meeting could “seriously violate norms governing international relations and severely impair China-US relations”. Beijing has always been opposed to any world leader meeting
The US recognises Tibet as part of China and does not support Tibetan independence, but supports the Dalai Lama’s approach for more autonomy, said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council
“We are concerned about continuing tensions and the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibetan areas of China,” Hayden said
The White House views the Dalai Lama as “an internationally respected religious and cultural leader” and noted Obama had met him twice before, in February
2010 and July 2011.
the Dalai Lama, and reacts with predictable anger and irritation, which is routinely, and just as predictably, ignored.
Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that either the White House was blindfolded by the Dalai Lama’s word game, or politicians were seeking once again to manipulate China with an unscrupulous old trick. It said that the “seemingly reasonable and mild ‘middle way approach’ of the Dalai Lama was just a camouflaged attempt at Tibetan independence.”