Let's Send the Dalai Lama to the Olympics

The world’s leaders should pressure China to recognize the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama by saying they’ll only attend the Olympic Ceremonies if China lets him attend as well. And we citizens should pressure our leaders to make that happen! (You'll find contact info for the White House, Presidential candidates, and Congressional leaders at the bottom of this post if you want to read it -- or you can skip my blathering and jump to contact info here. Thanks!)
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UPDATE, APRIL 10: The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a resolution calling for China to change its position on Tibet -- ticking China off. The Secretary General of the United Nations won't be at the opening ceremonies -- but only for "scheduling" reasons. The Dalai Lama is in Seattle. But so far, the only thing being demanded of China is talk -- which is cheap -- so it's important to get leaders to at least consider the idea of the Dalai Lama actually attending the Olympics (as he said he wants to do). So please use the contact info below to make calls and send emails! Thanks.

ORIGINAL POST: China’s decades-long occupation, and recent violent suppression, of Tibet isn’t an easy problem to solve. On the one hand, any halfway objective person knows that China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950 was wrong, its imprisonment and murder of tens of thousands of peaceful Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople is wrong, its insistence that all other Buddhists in that country disown the Dalai Lama and swear allegiance to the “Panchen Lama” picked by the Communist government (after it kidnapped and presumably killed the child identified by the Dalai Lama as the true one) was wrong. China’s suppression of Catholic Easter services near Tibet was wrong, its exclusion of journalists from all places where dissent might occur is wrong, its continued suppression of the Falun Gong religious sect is wrong, and on and on. China doesn’t deserve to host the Olympics, with the boosts to its economy and to its reputation that such an honor bestows. Ergo, the protests surrounding the Olympic torch.

On the other hand, most Chinese sincerely believe that Tibet is and always has been part of China and that all pro-Tibet sentiment actually is thinly concealed anti-Chinese prejudice. In foreign affairs, China’s leaders are almost as paranoid, and their thinking is almost as skewed, as North Korea’s, a reality that most Americans don’t fully appreciate. It’s easy to hurt their feelings and stir their nationalist sentiments. And that wouldn’t be a good idea: China is the second-largest of America’s foreign creditors, and one of America’s largest trading partners; if China got really angry it could elect not to buy any U.S. Treasuries at the next quarterly bond auction, and potentially plunge our economy from recession into a full-blown depression. We’ve come to rely on China’s goodwill far, far too much, with the result that we are not free, and we are not safe. But since we can’t extricate ourselves from that dependence right away, especially under the current Administration, we do need to tread carefully.

There are a number of ways countries could respond to China’s latest human rights violations, ranging from meaningless verbal expressions of outrage (President Bush’s response) to a full-blown boycott like the one Jimmy Carter called on the Moscow Olympics when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (an invasion that led, more or less directly, to 9/11 and to our occupation of Iraq). One alternative falling somewhere in the middle of that range is for other nations’ leaders to personally boycott the Opening Ceremonies, which would be a significant slight to the Chinese government’s self-image. When unrest in Tibet flared up again a month or so ago, Bush twice ruled out such a personal boycott, saying that while he hoped the Chinese would show restraint, he still would attend the Olympics’ opening ceremonies because the Olympics are just a sporting event. But suppression has continued; U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced he won’t attend the Opening Ceremonies unless he sees serious dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama, and Hillary Clinton (after ducking the issue for too long, and still without calling for the Administration to reinstate China to the U.S.’s list of human rights violators (they were removed just this year) has correctly called for Bush to boycott the Ceremonies.

There’s a big problem with the “we’ll boycott the Opening Ceremonies unless you open real dialogue with the Dalai Lama” approach, though: talk is cheap. The Chinese could “dialogue” with the Dalai Lama until the Olympics were over, then return to their old views as soon as the Olympics were over. That approach gives good “cover” to both China and to Western leaders who need to appear outraged but who don’t really want to rile the Chinese – but it won’t do Tibet any good. No: any threat to boycott the Opening Ceremonies – or even the Olympics themselves, which I favor; we could hold a “Freedom Olympics” elsewhere so that the world’s athletes could still compete – must be coupled with something much more tangible than “dialogue.” The question is, what would be a tangible, and significant, way for China to signal a serious change of policy toward Tibet?

In comments this morning, the Dalai Lama himself may, probably inadvertently, have given us the key: he would like to attend the Opening Ceremonies.

That’s brilliant, and we should seize it: The rest of the world’s leaders should announce that they will do as the Dalai Lama does: if the Chinese allow him to attend the Games, they will attend the Games; if China won’t let Tibet’s rightful head of state attend, then no other world leader will attend.

To understand the huge significance such a simple thing would mean for China, we have to understand China’s policy toward the Dalai Lama. Consistent with his spiritual role in Tibetan Buddhism as the embodiment of Compassion itself, the Dalai Lama has said that China is entitled to hold the Olympics – and even that he doesn’t want full independence for Tibet, just real freedom of religion and government. Many of his followers think he’s being too passive, and when he passes away all possibility of such a modest settlement of its dispute with Tibet will probably disappear, but the Chinese government continues to demonize the Dalai Lama, calling him a tyrant, accusing him of conspiring with Muslims to destroy China, and other downright silly claims. The last thing the Chinese want to do – and the thing they should be eager to do – is recognize the Dalai Lama’s legitimacy, and to bolster his leadership of the Tibetan community worldwide, so they can snap up the once-in-a-lifetime (literally) compromise he offers.

So one goal of an Opening Ceremony or even Games-wide boycott could be to obtain clear Chinese acceptance of the Dalai Lama as the legitimate political, as well as spiritual, leader of Tibet. That would be a huge victory for Tibet, given that the Dalai Lama hasn't returned to China or Tibet since he fled in 1959, and there are Tibetans in Chinese jails at this moment merely for possessing his photograph. To give him any credibility at all would be a wrenching change for Chinese policy. And the Olympic Games present a perfect opportunity to make recognition happen. Conditioning a boycott on China granting permission for the Dalai Lama to travel freely to the Games would put the entire matter squarely in China’s lap: if they care more about suppressing internal dissent, then they will lose their standing in the international community, and if they care more about their world standing, then they will have to alter their “internal” policy on Tibet. And having the Dalai Lama appear on TV as the leader of Tibet during the Olympics would be an irrevocable recognition of his leadership – galling, but irrevocable.

So let’s help the Dalai Lama get what he wants, by calling for President Bush and the rest of the world’s leaders to condition their attendance at the Opening Ceremonies on the Dalai Lama’s own attendance. And let’s not just blog about it; let’s make our voices heard, by telling both the President and our other leaders what we’d like to see: that WE GO ONLY IF THE DALAI LAMA GOES:

White House: 202-456-1111; comments@whitehouse.gov

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: (202) 225-4965; AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: 202-224-3542; http://reid.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. Hillary Clinton: (202) 224-4451; http://clinton.senate.gov/contact

Sen. Barack Obama: (202) 224-2854; http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. John McCain: (202) 224-2235; http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Have fun, and please post comments to indicate how those contacts go!
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Chinese Government Bans Tibet Catholic Easter Service

(Photo: nave of the Catholic church in Cizhong, China, where Easter services are being curtailed by the Chinese government.)

It isn't just Buddhists whose religious freedom is being curtailed by the People's Republic of China. Chinese of all faiths, from Buddhists to Taoists to Falun Gong to Christians and others, face the same kind of government "editing" of their faith that Tibetan Buddhists do -- and now, there's news that China has even ordered many Tibetan area Catholics not to celebrate Easter today.

First, a quick background: When it seized power in 1949, China's Communist government, consistent with its atheistic philosophy, originally tried to extinguish religion altogether. However, it recognized fairly quickly that religion can't be completely suppressed -- and cleverly, if not wisely or laudably, shifted to a "co-opting" strategy instead. Probably the earliest example is Chairman Mao's famous "Little Red Book" of Communist aphorisms and rules for living: much of the book is nothing more than traditional Confucian proverbs, twisted to fit Mao's agenda. Sayings that Chinese grandparents had been repeating for hundreds of years suddenly seemed, to a new generation of Chinese, to support the Communist doctrine they were learning at school and elsewhere, helping Mao become as venerated, in the new State, as Confucius was in the old.

Similarly, the Chinese government co-opts all other forms of religion as well. Buddhist monks must disown the Dalai Lama and swear allegiance to the State over their religion before being allowed to study in monasteries. When the Dalai Lama, as is traditional, designated the successor to the Panchen Lama, Chinese authorities whisked the boy away, never to be seen again, and named their own "Panchen Lama." In a show of cynicism so transparent that it would be funny if it weren't so sad, a group of official "Living Buddhas" have even issued a statement supporting the government and condemning the protests in Tibet as the actions of drunk monks.

But such meddling isn't limited to Buddhists. On Easter, it is meet and proper to recall the plight of China's Christians, too. The Catholic Church is a prime example. In the 1950s -- at the same time as Maoists were clamping down in Tibet -- the Chinese government abolished the Catholic Church and replaced it with a "Patriotic Catholic Association," whose bishops are all state-appointed and which teaches loyalty to the State above loyalty to the Pope.

China's interference with Catholic worship is alive and well this Easter day, as well, in Rome as well as China. Pope Benedict, who has been trying to open dialogue with China over Catholic religious freedoms, instructed that the illustrations for the Way of the Cross procession in Rome today be done in Chinese style. He also apparently instructed the archbishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, to tone down the written meditations he wrote to accompany those illustrations, to omit any direct criticism of the Chinese government.

And now China -- newly-removed from the Bush Administration's list of human rights violators, awarded the right to host the Olympics this summer, which George Bush will visit soon no matter how it abuses its power in Tibet, and handled with kid gloves by the Catholic Church -- has ordered some Tibetan Catholics not to celebrate Easter this year:

CIZHONG, China (AFP) — The Tibetan Catholic Church in Cizhong, a Christian enclave on the threshold of the Himalayas, has seen its Easter services curbed after anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa caused the region's deadliest tensions in two decades.

As a result, this tiny community of less than 1,000 souls located in amid picturesque mountains in an overwhelmingly Buddhist area has been affected by the recent unrest where it matters the most for them -- religion. ***

This Easter has been especially important as Father Yao Fei, a short bespectacled ethnic Mongolian in his late 30s, only arrived in Cizhong in February.

This made him the first permanent priest to live here since French clergymen were expelled shortly after communist China was established in 1949.

Since then, Catholic priests were only periodically dispatched to Cizhong for special occasions such as Christmas and Easter....

However, following the deadly March 14 riots in Lhasa, police from Diqing Tibetan prefecture, in the northwest of Yunnan province, told church officials to restrict Easter services to fewer than 100 people.

They did not say why ....

"We are only expecting about 80 followers from (Cizhong) village to attend Easter services as the worshippers from other villages will not be allowed to come," Yao told AFP on Good Friday.

Understand: no protests have occurred in Cizhong. Cizhong isn't even located inside Tibet. The unrest in Tibet is directly related to China's interference with Tibetan Buddhism and has nothing to do with Catholicism or any other religion (though the Chinese government is now even accusing the Dalai Lama of "collaborating" with Muslims). There's no reason to fear this small village on the Mekong River, or its neighbors. And yet, a paranoid government that fears all religion uses unrest in Tibet as an excuse to bar Cizhong's first priest in 59 years from celebrating his first Easter service with the majority his parishioners. He is Risen, Indeed -- but not this year, for the faithful around Cizhong -- or so China hopes. (Of course, adherents of all faiths, and even those who adhere to no faith but who stand in awe of the human spirit, know otherwise.)

So why should Christian or Jewish or Unitarian or Muslim or atheist Americans care about persecution of Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet? Because we have the imagination and compassion to care about people who are not like us -- but also, in case anyone needs a more practical reason, because persecution never stops at "the other"; it always creeps, cancer-like, to infect "us" as well. China is not only persecuting Buddhists and Christians and Muslims; ridiculously, it's even afraid of the Boy Scouts. John Donne famously, and accurately, wrote in Meditation XVII:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Finally, a political note, because politics is where ideals and action should intersect: it's hard to find anyone showing moral leadership on this issue. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants us to go easier on China. All three Presidential candidates have issued written statements decrying events in Tibet and asking China to show restraint -- McCain's and Obama's fairly strongly worded, Clinton's weaker and talking more about herself than about the problem -- but all are "just words", not very different from the similar statement issued by President Bush, whose actions -- having China removed from the list of human rights violators, affirming he will travel to the Olympics no matter what happens in Tibet -- show his true level of concern.

I also asked Clinton's representatives directly, during a press conference, whether they would advocate returning China to the human rights violators list; they won't. She's far more interested in talking about her disputed role in the Northern Ireland peace talks -- which her campaign frankly admitted, in a press conference, is largely an effort to curry favor with Pennsylvania's large Irish Catholic community -- than she is in actually taking action for peace for Tibet's Buddhists -- or China's Catholics. I find that hypocritical, since Clinton has bragged so much about her commitment to peace processes and has criticized Obama so soundly for spouting "mere words" when that's all she appears willing to do with regard to China's suppression of religious freedom. (I've also written to the Obama campaign, asking about their position, and haven't received a reply.) So far the strongest position of any American politician has been taken by Nancy Pelosi, who is asking for an international investigation into the protests in Tibet.

It's reasonable to call all the candidates' local campaign offices and ask them to take a firmer stand -- to move beyond mere words. And it's also reasonable to contact China's embassy and consulate, and China's Olympic officials, to protest the treatment of Tibet's Buddhist, Cizhong's Catholics, and everyone else whose freedom to practice their faith is constrained by a paranoid and brutal regime. That contact information can be found here. Other information on Cizhong can be found here and here.
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"You Are Not Free, And You Are Not Safe"

In 1900, the United States was a creditor nation: we loaned money to others, and invested both at home and overseas. We exported far more than we imported, in both raw and finished commodities. And we were on our way to becoming the most powerful nation on earth -- economically, militarily, and morally.

Fast forward 100 years. We are the world's largest debtor nation. We import far more than we export, with China being our largest source of overseas imports. And our entire economy is based on borrowing from other nations, with China being our second largest foreign creditor.

If you'd like to lie awake tonight, ask yourself: what would happen if China declined to buy any U.S. bonds whatsoever at the next bond auction, effectively declining to continue refinancing the national debt? Answer: our economy would collapse, Great Depression-style.

Or, for a less extreme example, ask yourself: what would happen if China unilaterally decided to discourage investment in its own stock market, depressing Chinese stock prices? It would be pretty to think that a slide in the internal stock market of a nominally insular, Communist country would be largely irrelevant to the capitalist West. But the truth is harsher, as demonstrated by today's worldwide slide in stock prices. China's government makes a decision about its own stock market, and our stock market takes a slide. Tomorrow, things will either continue to deteriorate, or China will take steps to reassure Western investors -- but which way things go will mainly be up to China, not to us.

Essayist and poet Wendell Berry, in his excellent collection of essays Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, wrote this: "If you are dependent on people who do not know you, who control the value of your necessities, you are not free, and you are not safe." Until we can become self-reliant again -- not isolationist, but self-reliant, capable of controlling our own destiny as a nation -- we will remain unfree, and we will remain fundamentally unsafe, no matter how many nukes we possess. And that, in large part, is why free-trade, DLC Democrats are nearly as dangerous to America's well-being as the free-trade, corporatist Republicans they are copying.

UPDATE, MARCH 3: Next-day rise in US indexes notwithstanding, it's not over yet....

UPDATE, MARCH 4: Still not over... Others are acknowledging that China's woes are the world's woes (so is it "protectionist" to want to loosen that connection?)... And as Treasury yields decline, there'll be less incentive for people to buy them (i.e. to finance the continual expansion of the national debt), which means the face yield of G-bonds will need to increase, which will increase the national debt even more (just like your credit card balance will go up if the interest rate rises but you keep just paying minimums), and pressure will increase on our policymakers to eventually allow higher inflation to artificially reduce our debt load in real dollars. You can't take away just one card from a house of cards...
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