Despite protests from China, President Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama:
Analysis: Obama to meet Dalai Lama, upset China Diplomacy;
U.S. President has few options to back down
From the National Post
To most in the West, the 75-year-old Dalai Lama is the world’s most prominent political refugee, a spiritual leader to six million Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel Peace Price winner. Canada has made him an honorary citizen, and the United States gave him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
To China’s leaders he is “a wolf in monk’s robes,” a splitist, a former slave master and a dangerous separatist.
Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, has insisted on several occasions shunning the Dalai Lama should be considered one of the “basic principles of international relations.”
So it came as no real surprise yesterday when Chinese officials warned Barack Obama any meeting with the Dalai Lama will “seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-U. S. relations.”