Posted on 10/10/2007 9:38:05 PM PDT by george76
US President George W. Bush will risk angering China by attending a ceremony next week to award a Congress medal to the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, at the bastion of American democracy.
Barely a month after China strongly protested German Chancellor Angela Merkel's meeting with the Dalai Lama, the White House said Wednesday that Bush and his wife will participate in the landmark event for the 72-year-old Buddhist spiritual leader at the Capitol building next Wednesday.
"The president and Mrs Laura Bush will attend the ceremony," ...
A bill to award the medal won the support of more than two thirds of members of both the Senate and House of Representatives last year before it was signed into law by Bush.
This will be the first time that a sitting US president will appear with the Dalai Lama in a public event, a move that could anger China...
China reacted angrily when the US Congress announced the award last year.
The award "has sent very serious, wrong signals to the Tibetan independence forces, seriously interfered into China's internal affairs and damaged China-US relations," Beijing said then.
Aside from Merkel, the Dalai Lama also met Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer last month and was received by Australian Prime Minister John Howard in June. He is scheduled to meet Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper this month.
Following the ceremony, the Congress, in a rare move, has agreed to allow the Dalai Lama to address a large crowd of well wishers on the West Lawn of the Capitol.
China has ruled Tibet since sending troops in to "liberate" the Himalayan region in 1950.
The Dalai Lama fled to India following a failed uprising in 1959 after Beijing crushed the revolt in Lhasa.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Is it too much to hope that they take all of their junk off of our shelves and go home?
China needs to get bent.
Because Clinton didn't have the...what do you call them? ... cajones?
Or maybe it's because the Clintons get their biggest cash contributions from Beijing!?!
“Long hitter, the Lama.”
I hear it didn't slow down your torturing of nuns and monks in Lhasa prisons.
Bingo :
because the Clintons get their biggest cash contributions from Beijing!?!
Not meeting the Dalai Lama since he fled the Chinese would include every president since Eisenhower.
Boo hoo to China. I'm with Sassy on her boycott. After reading what they've done to the Tibetans I have nothing to say to them but as another poster said ...get bent. And I bet the Clintons took lots of cash. They need to get bent too.
FWIW Eisenhower was out of office before or very shortly after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet. In those days (Eisenhower or JFK) had the CIA clandestinely training Tibetan resistance fighters.
see post #12
Please, Bush is bent over by the Chinese...if he wants to throw down the gauntlet he should start banning contaminated Chinese exports and slap trade tarrifs on their products until they start playing by the “free trade” rules.
"Internal affairs"? Wasn't Tibet an independent state before Maoist China invaded it? Why isn't that invasion considered an act of genocidal aggression by the Security Council?
If there was any justice or logic in the world, the UN and the intelligentsia would be hellbent on freeing Tibet and her Bhuddist monks as opposed to “Palestine” and her suicide bombers.
Isn’t there a FReeper named dial-up lama or something?
You mean Dialup Lhama? ;-)
In the short term, yep.
Long term implications? Well, the Chinese, when they manufacture goods for American corporations, subsidize the construction of factories and the "molds" used in any fabrication process. The government owns the molds.
So say you are manufacturing "Star Wars" toys and due to the "quality fade" factor the next batch of "Obi Wan" dolls has a new force power called "Force Lead Poisoning": You jump up and down and tell the factory, "We're cancelling our order!".
Well, you can't just get up and walk away. The Chinese own the molds and you have to start all over again somewhere else, and you can bet it won't be in China. Then you have to start from scratch somewhere else, and your profit margins going to take a beating. So your shareholders are screaming and you'll probably lay off half your lower end staff here at home.
The next day, some nameless Chinese company launches it's new "Star Wares" toy line at half the cost of the goods you've just imported.
Sleep with a dog and wake up with fleas...same old story.
Over the short haul, we won't see much change. Long term? We may see nominal improvements in quality even with "quality fade". Enough to entice manufacturing to remain there. Remember PT Barnum's words...
President Bush had better be careful, he may screw up his money train from the chi-coms after he gets out of office.
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