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China says Obama should understand about Tibet

Nov 13 2009 08:02

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A Chinese government official has said Barack Obama should understand China's opposition to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence because he is a black president who lauded Abraham Lincoln's role in America abolishing slavery.

Qin Gang, a foreign ministry spokesperson, likened slavery in America to Tibetan society under the Dalai Lama, and Lincoln's opposition to the secession of southern states to China's opposition to Tibetan independence.

Tibetan groups were quick to respond by claiming the mantle of Lincoln for their own cause.

The comments came four days before Obama arrives in China during his first tour of the Asia-Pacific region. He has been under domestic pressure for declining to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington last month, but has said he will meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the future.

Beijing accuses the Buddhist leader of "splittism" and says that prior to Communist party rule Tibetans lived as serfs. The Dalai Lama says he seeks only meaningful autonomy for the region and would not return to the feudal system, which Tibetan campaign groups say cannot in any case be likened to slavery.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Qin said Obama had observed that he could not have become president without the efforts of his 19th century predecessor.

"He is a black president and he understands the slavery abolition movement and Lincoln's major significance for that movement. Lincoln played an incomparable role in protecting the national unity and territorial integrity of the United States."

Qin said China hoped that "more than any other foreign leader" Obama would grasp China's stance on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In a briefing on the trip this week, Jeffrey Bader, the senior director for East Asian affairs at the US national security council, said he had "every reason to expect that the issue of Tibet will come up".

CONTINUES BELOW

"The president has made clear that he is prepared to meet with the Dalai Lama in the future at the appropriate time. He met with him in the past when he was a senator and he will meet with him again."

Qin said Beijing opposed any meetings between the Dalai Lama and foreign leaders and that the issue was among China's core concerns.

Matt Whitticase of the Free Tibet campaign said Beijing's claims would backfire. "By trying to be clever China has underlined its inability to see what true freedom looks like," he said. "As a democratically elected president Abraham Lincoln would have instinctively opposed China's enslavement of the Tibetan people and supported the Dalai Lama as the legitimate leader of the Tibetan people.

"Tibetans constantly called for the Dalai Lama's return last year during their protests. President Obama is smart enough to realise this and is well aware the US Congress has passed a law which states Tibet's true representatives are the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, as recognised by the Chinese people."

This year, China declared a new Tibetan holiday called serfs' emancipation day to mark the 50th anniversary of China's defeat of a pro-independence uprising. Melvyn Goldstein, the author of A History of Modern Tibet, said at the time that a system similar to Europe's manorial one had existed in Tibet before the 1950s. Bonded peasants worked on land owned by nobles or monasteries without wages, living on what they grew on tenement land.

"The Dalai Lama says the system was not good and he was happy to get rid of it," Goldstein said. "[But] it was not like serfdom in Russia, selling people here and there." - guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009

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Comments

China, the real terror.

Dylan Goodwin on November 13, 2009, 9:54 am

Meanwhile we are all becoming slaves ourselves!
Believe it!

We ain't seen nothing yet! Prepare to be astounded!

peter nel on November 13, 2009, 10:08 am

The Chinese blow my mind! Tibetans were serfs under the Dalai Lama - so the invasion was to liberate an oppressed people?!? Are there people out there who buy this rubbish? What are Tibetans (or Chinese people generally) now? As poor and unfree as serfs, but having the additional humiliation of having their country invaded, their institutions crushed, their religion banned and their national identity destroyed. They were also invaded and added to China just in time to join in the greatest atrocity ever committed in the history of mankind - the rule of Chairman Mao, who killed as many of his own people as the Holocaust and Stalin's purges combines. If the free world had any balls or conviction, of the sort that appears when oil is at stake, like Kuwait, then by rights China should have been brought to heel by force, or at the very least by severe economic sanctions. But that ain't gonna happen!

Jy Wilmos on November 13, 2009, 10:19 am

"The Dalai Lama says the system was not good and he was happy to get rid of it," Goldstein said.

The Dalai Lama has changed his mind? Well well! That is what he says and there is nothing, really nothing, like being wise after the event, specially with a little jolt or two from vested interests in good old RepuBushco America. So the Dalai must be given full credit, even of course it only goes to show that he is not a leader but a follower. But then good for him!
Despite this wonderful news, I would imagine there are many Southerners in America who still hanker after the good old days of slavery, just are there are some SA'ns , white and black, who hanker after the days of the Baas and many Tibetans who hanker after the days of forced, selfless, and unpaid subservience, when they were not murdering and plundering through huge swathes of China and raping the diligent, respectful daughters they found there.
Matt Whitticase could be of this kind.
Let us hear more from him. We could honour him. A hero! A Buccaneer!
I wonder if he draws a salary, which would be a bit dim for a pirate really. I wonder if the Dalai Lama still gets money from the CIA, well through the usual proxies of course.

James Edwards on November 13, 2009, 10:58 am

All these China-bashers must demystify China and put down their cellphones and X-boxes and start reading the history of the PRC and then progress to the modern history of the Opening Up of the PRC by Deng Xiao Ping. Maybe it will go a long way to understanding the trends in the world that are happening today all over the world. Don't just bash! It shows your ignorance! The world has changed right under your noses and you know zilch about what is going on in the here and now. Read! Read! And stop talking drivel! Better the devil you know!

Mariann Scott on November 13, 2009, 11:51 am

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China says Obama should understand about Tibet

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