On the road to Mandalay (English Song)

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No Time for the Dalai Lama

In nearly nine months in office, President Obama has found time to meet with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Vladimir Putin. But this week he won't see the Dalai Lama, a peaceful religious leader who has long been a friend to the U.S. and an advocate of human rights for China's six million Tibetans.

Mr. Obama's slight is the first time a sitting president will not meet with the Dalai Lama during a Washington visit since President George H.W. Bush met with him in 1991. No meeting was ever formally on the agenda for this week, but the exiled Tibetan's trip had been planned for years, and earlier this year he had expressed his hope to meet with the President. Last month, White House aide Valerie Jarrett and Maria Otero, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, traveled to Dharamsala to confer with the Dalai Lama. The next day, the Dalai Lama's office announced that he hoped to meet with Mr. Obama only after November, when Mr. Obama will visit Beijing.

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Associated Press
Dalai Lama
As a White House official explained: "Both the Dalai Lama and we agree that a stable and positive U.S.-China relationship will help advance progress on the Tibet issue, and that a meeting after the President's trip would further the likelihood of making progress on Tibetan issues." In other words, not offending Chinese President Hu Jintao is a higher U.S. priority, at least on Tibet. By contrast, Mr. Obama was more than willing to risk offending China by imposing tariffs on Chinese tires last month to please his union supporters.

This is of a piece with Mr. Obama's other human-rights backsteps, in particular his muted support for democracy in Iran. The Dalai Lama has met with the sitting U.S. President a dozen times, as well as with Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle (including a certain Senator Obama in 2005). Although Beijing complained about these meetings, there were no serious costs to the U.S.-China relationship. George W. Bush met with the Dalai Lama in May of 2001, in advance of his first trip to China, and thereafter made clear that meetings with him were nonnegotiable.

These Presidential meetings are important because they affirm the religious and democratic freedoms America stands for, while setting a global precedent. China routinely assails countries whose leaders meet with the Dalai Lama, targeting France and Germany in recent years by cutting off diplomatic exchanges, canceling conferences and the like. Perhaps the Administration is hoping for a return favor from Beijing for snubbing the man Chinese leaders label a "splittist" and a "wolf in sheep's clothing." But rewarding China's bullying only encourages such tactics.

On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama will honor the late Julia Taft, who spoke out against Chinese abuses in Tibet as coordinator on Tibetan issues in the Clinton Administration. He'll also meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps he can wave at the White House on his way to Capitol Hill. It's becoming clear that Mr. Obama's definition of "engagement" leaves plenty of room to meet with dictators, but less for those who challenge them.