Political gamesmanship on China policy hurts U.S. interests

NEW YORK, Feb. 16 (NsNewsWire) — U.S. President Barack Obama‘s recent greeting of the Dalai Lama at a religious event in Washington was an unwise move as it served nothing but to add needless and harmful ambiguities to his policy toward Beijing.

At the annual prayer breakfast in Washington on Feb. 5, Obama, ignoring China’s opposition, greeted the Dalai Lama and called him “a good friend,” although the man, among his many self-claimed roles, has been a lifelong politician bent on separating Tibet from China, reports Xinhua.

The salute showed a gross disrespect for China’s core interests, and cast a chill on the relations between Washington and Beijing, which has long been unequivocally opposed to any meeting between the Dalai Lama and foreign leaders.

Yet a chilly cross-Pacific relationship is clearly not something Washington wants. Just days later, the Obama administration invited Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit in September, in a move that was widely considered as in part a remedy for the Dalai Lama episode.

Scheduling a state visit seven months in advance is rare in diplomacy. It shows, to some extent, that Washington is keenly aware of the significance of China-U.S. interaction and the fact that it has more to gain from cooperation with Beijing.