Surprise surprise surprise...we're kissin Chinas butt...........imagine that...

[pamsback]

President Barack Obama has refused to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this week in a move to curry favour with the Chinese.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 6:20PM BST 05 Oct 2009

The decision came after China stepped up a campaign urging nations to shun the Tibetan spiritual leader.

It means Mr Obama will become the first president not to welcome the Nobel peace prize winner to the White House since the Dalai Lama began visiting Washington in 1991.

The Buddhist monk arrived in Washington on Monday for a week of meetings with Congressional leaders, celebrity supporters and interest groups, but the president will not see him until after he has made his first visit to China next month.

Samdhong Rinpoche, the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile, has accused the United States and other Western nations of "appeasement" toward China as its economic weight grows.

"Today, economic interests are much greater than other interests," he said.

Mr Obama's decision dismayed human rights and Tibetan support groups, who said he had made an unnecessary concession to the Chinese, who regard the Dalai Lama as a "splittist", despite his calls for autonomy rather than independence for Tibet. The Chinese invaded in 1950, forcing the young leader to flee.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocate for Human Rights Watch, said: "Presidents always meets the Dalai Lama and what happens? Absolutely nothing.

"This idea that if you are nice to the Chinese Communist Party up front you can cash in later is just wrong. If you lower the bar on human rights they will just move it lower and lower."

Over several months of discussions the Tibetans resisted entreaties to delay the meeting, arguing that a refusal would make smaller countries more vulnerable to pressure from China not to meet the Dalai Lama.

But they were told by US officials they wanted to work with China on critical issues, including nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea and Iran, according to The Washington Post. Mr Obama then sent a delegation to the Dalai Lama's home in exile in India last month that confirmed the meeting would be deferred.

Mr Obama has changed his position on Tibet since his election campaign.

In April 2008, he was joined by Hillary Clinton, then his rival for the Democratic nomination and now his Secretary of State, in calling on George W Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in protest at the bloody repression of a popular uprising in Tibet.

"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security, and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the President should boycott the opening ceremonies," they said.

Mrs Clinton has been at the forefront of a new approach, called "strategic reassurance", which seeks a more amicable partnership with the emerging power.

On her first trip to China in February she said public pressure on China over human rights was ill-advised as she "knew what the Chinese were going to say".

Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Washington-based special envoy to the Dalai Lama, issued a brief statement, saying: "We came to this arrangement because we believe that it is in our long-term interests."

A White House official said the administration and the Tibetans had "agreed the timing would be best after the visit".

"Both sides attach importance to a strong US-China relationship," the official said. "There are benefits in that to our goals for Tibet, as we have been working to resume discussions between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama's representatives."

The Tibetan leader's ten meetings with US presidents have played an important role in maintaining his international profile, even though they have never been filmed or followed by a press conference.

The exception was 2007, when George W Bush conferred the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award, on the Dalai Lama in front of the cameras.

Frank Wolf, a Republican congressman and outspoken critic of China's human rights record, said: "What would a Buddhist monk or Buddhist nun in Drapchi prison think when he heard that President Obama, the president of the United States, is not going to meet with the Dalai Lama?

"It's against the law to even have a picture of the Dalai Lama. I can almost hear the words of the Chinese guards saying to them that nobody cares about you in the United States."

Ms Richardson said treating human rights as separate from other issues guaranteed failure "across the board".

"If there is no explicit agreement to stop locking up environmental activists and whistle blowers then any environmental agreement will be weakened.

"If the press in China is muzzled it won't investigate industrial safety and you will have more toxic toys coming to the United States," she said.

[srkruzich]

Makes ya wonder whos getting the lewenski doesn't it

[Anmar]

Welcome to the price of perpetual war and insane government corruption.

[pamsback]

  Just heard Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize..........yet he snubs another Peace prize holder in favor of a totalitarian government. Can't even articulate all I'm thinkin in a coherant manner...........

[srkruzich]

Well it shouldn't surprise us, the nobel comittee gave a peace prize to a terrorist a few years back. 

[pamsback]

 I've been doin a LOT of reading and research the last couple of days since I learned Obama declined to meet the dalai lama in favor of china......this whole country has been concentrating on"oh my god he's a closet muslim and the muslims are gonna take us over..he's settin us up for iran or whatever".  Considering all the stories I've been reading about countries all over the world "doing things out of consideration for Chinas preferences" we've let our attention be distracted from the true threat to our life liberty and pursuit of happiness, it AIN'T islam and it AIN'T obama....... This is long but......

Strategic Implications of Chinese Aid and Investment in Latin America
Publication: China Brief Volume: 9 Issue: 20October 7, 2009 04:19 PM Age: 2 daysCategory: China Brief, Home Page, Foreign Policy, Economics, China and the Asia-Pacific, Latin America
By: Evan Ellis

Brazilian President Lula (L) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (R)
Since 2008, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has moved forward with a series of large aid and investment deals, indicating that the PRC is raising its stake in Latin America to a new level [1]. The impact of China's expanding commitment in Latin America extends far beyond the PRC's immediate goals of securing access to Latin American markets and reliable sources of primary products at favorable prices. The implications of this trend can be understood in terms of four overlapping effects: (1) the interaction is transforming the physical, economic, educational and social structure of the region; (2) it is enabling the survival and spread of regimes oriented against the United States, Western-style democracy and economic models; (3) it is enabling the emergence of Brazil as a regional powerbroker; and (4) it is undermining the United States as a source of political and economic influence in the region, as well as U.S. options for regional engagement. While China is transforming Latin America through such effects, however, this does not imply that they are deliberate, primary objectives of Chinese foreign policy toward the region.

The mechanism by which Latin America's expanding relationship with the PRC is transforming the region has as much to do with expectations by Latin American investors of future business with China. Inspired by expectations of selling to, or importing from China, Latin Americans are investing to improve their infrastructure, including the expansion and modernization of Pacific ports such as Ensenada, Buenaventura, Manta, Callao and Iquique, among others. The desire to facilitate commerce with China has also breathed new life into contemplated but long unfunded infrastructure projects, connecting the continent to its Pacific coast, including the Manta-Manaus corridor, inter-oceanic corridors to Paita and Ilo in Peru, and the bi-oceanic corridor connecting São Paolo in southern Brazil with the Chilean port of Iquique. 

Beyond physical infrastructure, the belief held by students in the region that China is the wave of the future has driven the establishment of China-oriented programs throughout Latin American universities, as well as a wealth of offerings for learning Mandarin, from private institutes to university language programs, including the establishment of 18 officially sanctioned Confucius Institutes in the region.

Chinese engagement is also shaping the politics of the region. One such impact is the contribution of Chinese aid and investment in the survival of the "caudillo socialist block" (Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia). The PRC has been extremely cautious to avoid associating itself with the anti-U.S. proclamations of leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Nonetheless, the PRC benefits from the policies of these regimes insofar as their disruption of relationships with Western companies, and the personalistic character of their regimes creates opportunities for Chinese companies to gain access to their resources and deepen penetration of their markets.

The principal example of how China has enabled "caudillo socialism" in the region is its relationship with the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela. As Chavez has consolidated control of the petroleum industry and other sectors of the Venezuelan economy, China has played an increasingly important role in buying Venezuelan oil, working the oilfields and loaning money to the Chavez regime. Over the past two years, China Development Bank has loaned $8 billion to Venezuela, to be repaid in future oil deliveries, and is currently negotiating an additional loan of up to $4 billion. Although initially intended for Venezuelan infrastructure projects, these funds arguably helped the Chavez regime to meet its internal and external commitments when oil prices fell from $140 per barrel to less than $40. China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has expanded its Venezuelan oil operations while Western companies have pulled out, and in September 2009 announced its intention to invest an additional $16 billion (El Universal [Venezuela], September 17). 

In Ecuador, like Venezuela, China has helped to maintain the solvency of that country's anti-U.S. regime, issuing a $1 billion loan, which helped the government of Rafael Correa to manage a liquidity crisis associated with the repayment of foreign debt obligations (El Universo [Ecuador], July 23), as well as a $2 billion 1.5 Gigawatt hydroelectric plant, 90 percent self-financed by the Chinese company that performs the work (El Universo, September 12). The Chinese consortium Andes Petroleum is a key investor in Ecuador's oil sector, and has become increasingly important as other companies have pulled out in response to the Correa regime's move to force them to re-negotiate the terms of their concessions. Even in Bolivia, where the Chinese have proceeded cautiously, the state petroleum company YPFB is pursuing a strategic partnership with CNPC for the investment and technical expertise that it requires to maintain Bolivian gas production (La Razon [Bolivia], November 5, 2008). 

In addition to contributions as a resource provider and customer, China is also playing an expanding role as an alternative provider of technology and military goods. China has helped Venezuela to create a factory to assemble drilling rigs to develop its oil, as well as other joint ventures for producing cars and cell phones. The PRC has also launched a telecommunication satellite for Venezuela in 2008, and has become an important telecom infrastructure provider. In addition, the PRC sells the country increasingly sophisticated military end items, including air surveillance radars and military aircraft [2].

Ecuador and Bolivia have followed Venezuela's lead with respect to military purchases from the PRC. Ecuador, which had previously leased two MA-60 transport aircraft from the Chinese in 2007, is negotiating to purchase four more (El Universo, August 23), as well as taking delivery of two Chinese radars for evaluation, and purchasing  four more, to be delivered by the first quarter of 2011 (El Universo, August 23). Bolivia, which previously received trucks, small boats and night vision goggles from the PRC, is now working with them to launch a satellite (Los Tiempos [Bolivia], July 22) and purchasing six K-8 aircraft for counter-narcotics missions after being denied access to U.S. and European planes (El Universo, October 2).

In addition to providing resources, technical support and military goods that have contributed to the survival of the "caudillo socialist block," the PRC has also been contributing to Brazil's ascendancy as a regional power broker. Brazilian economic performance has been driven, in part, by its export-oriented iron and soy industries, for which China is a key customer. Indeed, the global recession emphasized and magnified the importance of China to Brazil. While Brazilian exports to the United States fell 37.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009, exports to the PRC increased by 62.7 percent (La Jornada [Nicaragua], May 4) thanks in part to a Chinese stimulus package that included $740 billion in infrastructure projects (Brazzil Magazine [Brazil], January 15), thus maintaining high levels of Chinese demand for factor inputs such as iron, purchased from Brazilian suppliers such as CVRD. Consequently, in the first half of 2009, China became Brazil's number one export destination (Xinhua News Agency [China], April 3). China has also emerged as a key financier as Brazil reaches out for the $174 billion that it requires to develop newly discovered deepwater oil reserves in the Campos and Santos basins. In discussing a $10 billion loan from China Development Bank to Brazil (La Nacion [Argentina], May 28), the president of Petrobras, Sergio Gabrielli, noted, "There isn't [sic] someone in the U.S. government that we can sit down with and have the kinds of discussions we're having with the Chinese" (The Wall Street Journal, May 18). 

The PRC is also an increasingly important partner in technology transfer for Brazil. The two nations are pursuing a range of important joint ventures, including joint production of mid-sized business jets, the China-Brazil Earth Research Satellite (CBERS) program and other space cooperation programs (Xinhua News Agency, May 19).

Brazil's expanding trade with China is also giving Brasilia reasons to become more interested in the affairs of its neighbors. In cities such as Manaus in the interior of Brazil, the economics of importing factory inputs from the PRC is greatly facilitated by routes linking the Brazilian Amazon to Pacific ports. Projects currently underway include highway corridors from the Amazon River over the Andes Mountains to the Peruvian ports of Paita and Ilo, as well as a possible multimodal corridor linking the Brazilian city of Manus, with its free trade zone, to the Ecuadorian port of Manta. In a similar fashion, Brazil's growing commerce with China also heightens its stake in the trade policy and political stability of its pacific neighbors, as well as major infrastructure projects affecting the economics of that trade such as the expansion of the Panama Canal.

In addition to sustaining the caudillo socialist block and contributing to the rise of Brazil, in a broader sense, Chinese investment and aid in Latin America is undermining the primacy of the United States' role as an economic and social actor in the region. This can be seen in the re-orientation of Latin America's trade structure away from the United States, Latin American efforts to either please or avoid offending China, and in the declining power of the United States as a "reference model" for economic development and democracy.

With respect to trade structure, PRC financial deals to facilitate commerce, such as the $10.2 billion debt swap with Argentina in March 2009 (La Nacion, March 31), represent an expanding challenge to the primacy of the dollar as an international reserve currency (Nacion [Costa Rica], March 31). Brazilian President Lula explicitly argued for working with China to move away from the dollar during his trip to China in May 2009 (Xinhua News Agency, May 22). 

Even before such challenges to the primacy of the dollar, however, the lure of China as a market was arguably one factor that helped to permanently derail the proposed "Free Trade Area of the Americas." Chinese bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with Chile and Peru, and FTA negotiations with Costa Rica can have the effect of moving the region away from a structure of trade relationships and incentives focusing the region on the United States, to a world in which Latin American states are more independent global actors. At the individual country level, such influence can be seen in Chile, the foreign economic policy of which focuses on positioning the country as a gateway between Asia and Latin America. A similar enthusiasm can be seen in Peru, which hosted the 2008 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and in which the PRC has made important investment commitments in the oil and gas sector, purchases of fishing fleets and fishmeal processing facilities, and mines in Toromocho, Rio Blanco and Maracona. It is also evidenced in the desire of countries such as Colombia and Costa Rica to tie themselves more closely to the Pacific economic community by joining APEC.

In the realm of what has been called "soft power," the United States is also losing influence in the region where U.S. initiatives conflict with Latin America's desires to maintain a positive relationship with the PRC for economic reasons. The decision by the Ecuadorian regime of Rafael Correa not to renew the agreement giving the U.S. access to Manta was a necessary step in inviting the Chinese to develop the airport into a hub for trans-pacific flights, even though the two were probably never explicitly connected by the Chinese. In the future, as Latin American regimes contemplate whether to allow potentially intrusive cooperation with U.S. law enforcement in areas such as counternarcotics, telecommunications, or banking, the impact of such cooperation on attracting investment from partners such as the Chinese will cast a growing shadow over their decisions.

The desire of Latin American leaders to court, please, or avoid offending the PRC, is becoming increasingly evident. When Costa Rican President Oscar Arias switched his country's diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the PRC in May 2007, a key factor was his belief that the emergence of the PRC as a global power made being on the "right side" of the China/Taiwan issue in Costa Rica's interest [3]. The importance that Latin American leaders place on China can be discerned by the number of its presidents who have led delegations to the PRC in recent years: in addition to the six trips to China by Hugo Chavez (La Estrella [Panama], April 6) and multiple trips by Rafael Correa and Evo Morales, virtually all the rest, including President Lula of Brazil, Alvaro Uribe, Felipe Calderon, Tabaré Vásquez, and Oscar Arias.   

To date, the PRC has limited its attempts to exert influence over its Latin American partners to areas tied to core Chinese interests, such as their recognition of Taiwan or Tibet, the opening of their markets to Chinese goods, and favorable or neutral positions with respect to China in forums such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Trade Organization. As China sinks more investment in Latin America, and becomes more dependent on the region as a market and a source of supply, it is logical that China would seek to motivate Latin American leaders to protect these interests. Although it is difficult to imagine the PRC demanding that a Latin American state not cooperate with the United States on police and security matters, it is increasingly easy to imagine that such a state might think twice, if it believes that a U.S. presence could jeopardize a major PRC purchase or investment in the country.

Finally, in the world of ideas in Latin America, the rise of China can become a powerful force in derailing the U.S. political, economic, and human rights agenda in the region. The ability demonstrated by the PRC to sustain growth rates in excess of 10 percent and recover rapidly from the global recession, by contrast to the United States, which precipitated the financial crisis and continues to contract, sends a powerful message to Latin American states that U.S.-style political pluralism may not be necessary for development, and in some circumstances, may be detrimental to it.