February 19, 2010 – 6:51 pm
I have written before that I don’t think that Chinese power is all that it has been cracked up to be. As the Economist points out, the Chinese seem to be well aware of their power limitations–an awareness that would help explain a lot of their behavior:
Some Chinese economists worry out loud that China’s massive stimulus-spending might have bought the country only a temporary reprieve. Bubbles, they fret, are forming in property markets, inflationary pressure is building up and reforms needed to promote sustained growth (including measures to promote urbanisation) are not being carried out fast enough. Occasionally, even the government’s worst nightmare is mooted as a possibility: stagflation. A combination of fast-rising prices and low growth might indeed be enough to send protesters on to the streets.
Abroad, Chinese leaders are struggling to cope with what they feel to be an accelerated shift in the global balance of power, in China’s favour. This has resulted in what Mr [Russell Leigh] Moses [a political analyst in Beijing--ed.] describes as behaviour ranging from “strutting to outright stumbling”. They reacted with oratorical fury in January, when America announced a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan. But while pandering
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February 19, 2010 – 3:53 pm
And then, I saw this. And read this:
For all of its talk about transparency, the White House shut out the press Thursday when President Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama.
Instead, Obama met privately with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the Map Room on the ground floor of the White House, far removed from reporters and photographers. Press secretary Robert Gibbs issued only a brief statement after the event, and the White House distributed a single in-house photo of the two leaders.
Typically, when a high-profile foreign dignitary is to meet with the president, photographers and reporters have an opportunity to take pictures and toss a few questions at the president and his guest at the beginning of their Oval Office meeting.
The Dalai Lama, however, is anything but a typical visiting dignitary. The Buddhist monk is viewed as a separatist by the Chinese government and his trips to Washington are always a sensitive matter. His visit forced the administration to balance its desire to avoid inflaming tensions with China with its promises of a new era of transparency in government.
Presidents past also have kept their encounters with the Dalai Lama mostly private.
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November 9, 2009 – 8:13 am
After all his talk of outreach on the global stage, the President’s failure to attend the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is of a piece with his refusal to use the power of the Presidency to advance political liberties around the world.
October 10, 2009 – 12:44 pm
Well, for one thing, more worthy candidates for the Peace Prize–and the causes they espouse–suffer a tremendous setback:
October 9, 2009 – 1:35 am
It is, of course, daft for President Obama to put off a meeting with the Dalai Lama simply because he thinks there is a small chance that doing so will yield some kind of good diplomatic fruit with the Chinese when the President meets with Hu Jintao.
October 6, 2009 – 2:48 am
Barack Obama is going to play nice with the Chinese by postponing a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after the President is able to meet with Hu Jintao next month.
