Bush pledges Dalai Lama meeting

[LaoSexMachine]

Bush pledges Dalai Lama meeting
By James Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington


US President George W Bush has said he will meet the Dalai Lama next week in a move certain to further anger China. The meeting will be in Washington on Tuesday, a day before the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is due to receive the Congressional Medal.
China has already objected to honouring a man it regards as a leader of a separatist state.
China now governs Tibet, which the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 following a failed uprising.
Highest honour
While the White House is playing down the significance of the Dalai Lama's latest private meeting with President Bush, the timing is likely to add fuel to the diplomatic flames.
A spokesman for the Chinese government said that the Beijing authorities resolutely opposed what he referred to as a Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama.
The spokesman said China was opposed to any country or person using the Dalai Lama issue to interfere in China's internal affairs.
The Bush administration has already announced that the president and his wife, Laura, will attend Wednesday's Capitol Hill ceremony, in which the Dalai Lama will be honoured with the highest civilian Congressional award.
It is thought this will be the first time that a sitting US president has appeared with the Dalai Lama at a public event.
The White House press secretary said that Mr Bush understood the Chinese would have concerns, but that he hoped the Chinese leaders would get to know that the Dalai Lama was someone who wants peace.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7040765.stm

[hank]

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one---big hitter, the Lama---long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

hank

[ronnieraygun]

Don't flame, but the man has a vibe. It is indescribable.


On topic, perhaps someone in the know could actually spell out the political and diplomatic ramifications. On a scale of 1 to 10, how does this compare to say, a Taiwanese election?

[hank]

I'm just kidding. I can't hear the words Dalai Lama without thinking of Caddyshack.

hank

[ronnieraygun]

^^Awesome flick. I think someone here has a Caddy shack avatar or something. I meant "dont flame" for me, I figure if I said I liked something about the Dalai Lama I would get flamed by the teenagers or something. :)

[MonkeyLibFront]

Whats the point anyway China has pretty much destroyed Tibet, it's people and to a certain extent Buddhism itself and the world just kept on whistling.

[9mmRifle]

Bush must be pandering to the Hollyweird lobby again, the Dalai Lama has been successful in gaining Western sympathy from Hollywood celebrities like Richard Tiffany Gere but that's about the sum of it and the movement has taken a nose-dive ever since. The Lama has about as much chance for kicking out the Chinese as the Australian Aboriginals have for sending the master whiteys packing back home to wherever place they came from. The Lama himself is not without his own Chinese skeletons, links to terroism, oppression of Shugden sects, holding hands with the doomsday cult leader Asahara.

[Macs.]

Angela Merkel also met with the Dalai Lama a few weeks ago.

The chinese were pissed and made the usual pitty patty. Who care ?

[gaijinsamurai]

The Dalai Lama no longer advocates for full Tibetan independence, but rather, greater autonomy and a respect for human rights on the part of the Chinese government.

[budgie]

Bush does know that the Dalai Lama is not an actual llama, right?

[Dilion]

The Dalai Lama no longer advocates for full Tibetan independence, but rather, greater autonomy and a respect for human rights on the part of the Chinese government.


even if he does, whats the big deal here? hell, China should be taken apart anyway.

[number nine]

even if he does, whats the big deal here? hell, China should be taken apart anyway.

May I ask why?

[9mmRifle]

May I ask why? Because they are commies and Communists = Bad. There are a few from the Reagan and Clinton camps that wanted Xinjiang returned to the radical muslims, thankfully China already had them all reading Mao's little red book. Freedom from Islamification ?

[number nine]

Only if they were communists... but they are more capitalists than USA and west Europe combined... and even that could be hardly an excuse.

No way currently anybody can defend against combined power of NATO without pushing the red button, that means, purely by conventional means. So let us see why our friend is so afraid of the China, that splitting it up is necessary. I am afraid his answer will have little connection with common sense.

Like USA and NATO are unable to defend themselves and the others like Taiwan and Japan from Chinese. And Indians and Russians can take care of themselves.

And 9mm rifle, from your answer and post of our friend I see you were afraid as hell from the Soviets in the USA. I doubt that was not mutual, they were fearing the USA the same. I see cold war mentality clearly, which became animosity toward anything communist.