No Obama photo-op for Dalai Lama

Posted By Christina Larson Monday, October 5, 2009 - 9:47 AM Share

The Dalai Lama is in Washington this week, but he won't be meeting with Obama. This will be the first presidential snub since 1991, and as the Washington Post reports:

The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China ... Obama administration officials have termed the new policy "strategic reassurance," which entails the U.S. government taking steps to convince China that it is not out to contain the emerging Asian power."

Recently, FP contributor Wen Liao explained the thinking:

The pragmatism that is Obama's diplomatic lodestar, it seems, comes at a price: Illusions must be abandoned. Publicly recognizing China's territorial unity is the sin qua non for effective bilateral diplomatic relations, and Obama knows it."

MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images

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GRANT

11:28 AM ET

October 5, 2009

I would not be so certain

I would not be so certain about China's territorial integrity. Historically speaking current China has only had its size for brief periods of time in its past, and I assume that it is only a matter of a few decades to a century before it breaks up again.
For the short term however, I agree that this fits in well with pragmatic politics. I do hope that there is at least a private meeting with a public official tough.

CNBCADDICT

1:07 PM ET

October 5, 2009

Interesting

I am not sure how this will play out with china and US relations. China obviously wants nothing to do with the Dali Lama. I personally think it is agood thing to rattle the cage every once in while

David

SHACKELFORD

11:20 PM ET

October 5, 2009

Hope & Change

I call BS on Wen Liao. George W Bush made significant strides towards China, yet remains the first president to meet the Dalai Lama in the White House in twenty years. This is just yet another example of Obama showing himself as not only weak, but unable to project simple leadership around the world. Bush could cuddle up to the Chinese and meet the Dalai Lama at the State residence because he was strong and assertive in his foreign policy. Merely wanting others to like you won't make it so. Leadership and Popularity are orthogonal pursuits, and Obama needs to give up his Quixotic quest of the latter if he wishes to gain the former.

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