President Obama partially gets his moral voice back meeting with the Dalai Lama after China demanded that he cancel the meeting last Friday. The POTUS met with the Dalai Lama albeit in low-key fashion.
The White House said President Obama “reiterated his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions and the protection of human rights for Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China.”
The relationship between the U.S. and China is the most important bi-lateral relationship of the twenty first century. There is an on-going dance to balance the relationship of an established power and a rising power. The two countries are jockeying for new type of relationship as the 21st century unfolds.
President George H.W. Bush became the first U.S. president to meet with the Dalai Lama. Since then, he has been hosted by every U.S. president–usually in a low-key manner–not to be to in your face of a face saving nation.
A moral voice is a terrible thing to lose. And yet, America’s national debt is producing collateral damage. As the U.S. debt rises, our strong and forceful global voice goes soft and our outrage diminishes.
Our national leaders should speak out about issues of human rights, free and fair trade, currency manipulation, cyber-security and theft if intellectual property while our state and local leaders work to build cultural, scientific, educational, economic and people-to-people ties with China.
If you think the problems in America are heating up, you only have to look to China and see things truly in flames.
Since 2009 over 125 Tibetan Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest of Chinese government policies. Tibetans are self-immolating to draw attention to the harsh actions of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Dalai Lama calls the Chinese Communist policies “cultural genocide” being carried out against the Tibetan people.
There has been tension between the Chinese Han majority and the Tibetan minority for centuries. It resulted in deadly riots in Lhasa, Tibet, in 2008.
The Tibetan people feel the situation is repressive and suffocating, and that they lack other means to demonstrate their anger and hopelessness.
The Chinese government blames Tibetans outside China, particularly the Dalai Lama, for stirring up trouble. The Dalai Lama disputes these claims and states clearly that he advocates a “middle way” with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence or a separate country for his people. China considers the Dalai Lama an anti-China separatist.
Obama, during the meeting, extended support to the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” approach of neither assimilation nor independence for Tibetans in China.
The Smallest Spark
The Chinese Communist Party, always mindful, as Mao said, that “The smallest spark can start a raging forest fire,” has maintained an intense security clampdown in Tibetan areas of China.
The tension is literally ablaze today. The Tibetan self-immolations are a desperate act of defiance against what is seen as unbearable Chinese Communist control.
Tibetans are one of 55 minority groups in China, and by far the best known. Tujia, Mongols, Miao, Qiang, Lisu, Hui, Yao and Uyghurs are Chinese minority groups that few in the West have heard of.
The Uyghurs are Muslim people living in Xinjiang Autonomous Region in far northwest China and are also viewed by the communist leaders as another “splitist” ethnic group. Like Tibetans, Uyghurs believe the Chinese are undertaking a cultural genocide against them.
Economic problems in America are eclipsing our historic focus on human rights issues. The self-immolation of the Tibetan Buddhist nuns and monks are slipping quietly under the radar screen.
Troubles At Home Cause Weaknesses Abroad
It is the classic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs playing out. It is difficult for the American people to worry about problems thousands of miles from their doorsteps when their basic safety and economic security are being eroded at home.
During tough economic times, issues that would resonate with the American people take a back seat to simple economic survival. Occupy Wall Street and Tea Parties have replaced protests to “Free Tibet.”
To many, the U.S.-China economic seesaw has the Asian giant in the ascending position. It is argued that China will pass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy before this decade ends. It should be noted China’s economy has been the world’s largest economy 18 of the past 20 centuries.
Our governments are in debt and it appears that it has become increasingly more difficult to bite the hand that feeds us. It is said, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”
America needs China’s help to address multiple world issues, including the continued global economic stumbles the shaky situation in North Korea, Iran, Egypt and Ukraine to name a few. That need has muted, at both the citizen and official government levels, America’s historical vocal opposition to international human rights violations. Our increasing financial debt, along with China’s rising economic strength, has compromised our moral standing.
This moral laryngitis serves China’s interests well, as the Chinese government regards Tibetans and Uyghurs as troublemakers attempting to disrupt China’s harmonious rise as they seek to capture the “Chinese Dream.” The thinking of the ruling Communist party is, the less noise made by America and other Western countries regarding these issues the better.
Further, given the historical interference by foreigners in China’s affairs, the Chinese leaders have little patience for Western lectures on what they consider their internal business.
So, while religious protesters turn to setting themselves on fire in order to draw the world’s attention to their plight, America finds itself mostly biting its lip.
If we wish to uphold our ideals we must do so from a position of strength. And our strength has always come from our ideas, ideals and our economy. Unless we get our fiscal house in order we will continue to lose our standing on many issues that we hold dear.
What happens in China impacts us all. The world is a hotter place when the American moral voice goes silent.
Tom Watkins has had a lifelong interest in China sparked by a great fourth grade teacher. He has worked for over 3 decades to build economic, educational and cultural ties between the US and China. He is advisor to the University of Michigan Confucius Institute, Michigan’s Economic Development Corporation and Detroit Chinese Business Association. Follow him on Twitter at @tdwatkins88 or email him at tdwatkins88@gmail.com.
