The 'Mystery' of Obama's Meeting with the Dalai Lama
By meeting
the Dalia Lama, was President Obama clinging to a worn-out Cold War plan to
eliminate communism? According to this article in the state-run Global Times,
Chinese can't understand why the meeting took place. In seeking to explain the mystery, the author, Lin Jinxu, explains that it the reason is the West's age-old confrontation against global communism and America's need to look strong.
Obama
has repeatedly ignored protests by the Chinese government and has insisted on
meeting the Dalai Lama. What's going on? China and the U.S. continually stress
that Sino-U.S. relations are among the world's most important. There's no need
to list all of the gestures made by the Chinese side, the most powerful being
that China holds more than $2 trillion in U.S. currency and is America's
largest creditor. So improving relations shouldn't be impossible.
For
its part, the U.S. has repeatedly extended an olive branch to China. In
particular, Obama arranged to visit our country not long after he took office.
He briefly moved the emotions of the Chinese people by walking along the Great
Wall and praising China's ancient history. But with Obama's words of praise still
ringing in people's ears, he had a complete about-face and began doing things
without any consideration for China's feelings, such as holding a high-profile
meeting with the Dalai Lama, a religious leader disdained by the Chinese for
seeking to split the country.
Obama
is certainly aware of the harm this will do to the feelings of the Chinese people.
Moreover, the U.S. needs China's cooperation on many international issues,
particularly on the global climate, six-party talks with North Korea and the
Iranian nuclear issue. Without China's cooperation, things will be difficult. Nevertheless,
the U.S. government obstinately insists on having its way and arranging a
meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama. People concerned about current
affairs can't help but wonder, why?
A number of articles of analysis and review have focused on this, but haven't offered a clear and concise enough explanation to allow people to understand
this mystery. Perhaps there is a taboo here, in which people are afraid to say
too much so as not to avoid hurting Obama's feelings. That is, he has a
difficult choice.
In
fact, Obama must meet with the Dalai Lama, because in the final analysis, the
United States continues to be determined to eliminate communism, and must make
opposition to communist influence the starting point for all of its decisions. So to
take this a step further - Obama must continue with the so-called Cold War
mentality.
Although
U.S. trade is guided by market demand and is conducted under the rules of the
global trading regime, there is an ideological bent to its policies. For
example, it promised to allow Cambodia to export products into the U.S. as well
offering the country a number of additional concessions to get the country off
the communist blacklist. Needless to say, the benefits that the U.S. has bestowed
in recent years show that Cambodia has been removed from the list. This isn't a
secret operation but has been openly stated on various occasions and in numerous
places. This shows that the United States hasn't forgotten that its ultimate
goal and highest responsibility is to eliminate communism.
The
year the Soviet Union dissolved, the eastern of the two major blocs vanished. The
U.S.-led Western bloc was ecstatic when they saw their ideology upheld as
seemingly correct and vital. The West hoped that this evolution would quickly
effect China. The think-tanks of the U.S. president predicted that sooner or
later, China would go the way of the Soviet Union.
Based
on this theory, China's economic reforms would allow China's middle class to
grow stronger; and with a strong middle class, so the theory goes, the demands
of capitalism would change everything and with time, eliminate the hostile influence
of communism.
However,
China's development doesn't seem to adhere to this theory; the growth and
expansion of China's middle class hasn't turned out the way the U.S. and other
Western communist-haters expected. This is evident from the Chinese Communist theory
of the "Three
Represents," under which private entrepreneurs or so-called emerging
capitalists can join the Party. Therefore, the likelihood of altering the minds
of China's next generation appears rather small. Now those who seek to
destabilize China have turned to the Dalai Lama, who has won the world's
sympathy, and is at the peak of his popularity. The makes the Dalai Lama a valuable
asset to the West, particularly the United States.
And there's
one other major reason Barack Obama insisted on seeing the Dalai Lama: to demonstrate
U.S. power. It must show that it's strong to substantiate its position as "big brother." It can't alter its meeting arrangements because
China told them to - and wouldn't that be obeying China's commands? Wouldn't that
show that America's position in the world has been shaken?
In
the most recent period, China's rising global influence has made it appear that
China is winning the race to number one. Using China's economic growth as an
example, the entire world knows that China's GDP will soon surpass Japan's as
the world's second largest economy; and some scholars forecast that after a few
more years, it will surpass the United States as the leading world power. These
comments may mean nothing to the ordinary reader, but for a group like the
Dalai Lama clique, it is undoubtedly a fatal blow. Just think, if the United
States was no longer the strongest country, what a blow it would be to their
scheme and how bleak it would be to their future?
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Moreover,
China's voice has much more power than before. A good example of this was China's
performance at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Many Westerners thought China's "arrogant"
behavior showed that it's on the rise and competing to have a right to express its
views on global affairs. After U.S. media reported that the President Obama had
been given the cold shoulder by several heads of state, not only did it make
Americans uncomfortable, it made those who consider the U.S. the backbone of all
anti-China forces even more concerned.
Therefore,
Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama was the inevitable result of the West's
need to show its hostility to China, and a similar need on the part of people
like the Dalai Lama to portray China as the enemy. We don't discuss topics like
this in public for fear that we'd be accused of having a Cold War mentality. But
if we fail to speak, aren't we covering our ears to ignore the bell?
*Lin
Jiaxu is a native of Guangdong Province. He attended the University of
Lianjiang. Then during Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, he returned to the
mountains and countryside as an educated youth. His jobs have included
promotional work, agricultural management, and government secretary. He has
been a journalist, a chief editor. His work is often published in newspapers. He
now lives in Cambodia.
