By Manik Mehta
While the entire Western business world seems to applaud China’s every move as long as that country lets them profit, the communist regime nurses doubts over its ability to keep power in the absence of legitimacy. Examples of such doubts surface when it faces critics or those that “threaten” its power base.
This insecurity surfaced in May when the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, visited Germany and was received by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
The highly suspicious and unduly sensitive Chinese diplomats in Berlin knew what they had to do: They were severely critical of the Dalai Lama’s visit.
It was not the Dalai Lama’s first visit to Germany. In fact, he has frequently visited Germany where Tibetans have created a strong base. Their plight has generated considerable sympathy among the German public for a free Tibet.
While the German Foreign Office, aware of the Chinese sensitivities, was at pains to emphasize that there was absolutely no change in Germany’s “one China” policy, the Chinese embassy would not be satisfied with lip service from the German government. Suitable actions should follow words. That was the tenor of the Chinese embassy’s vocal criticism of the Dalai Lama’s visit and his meeting with Fischer.
“The Federal German government considers, like all the other E.U. partners, Tibet as part of the Chinese state,” said Walter Lindner, the spokesman of the German Foreign Office, after the meeting between Fischer and the Dalai Lama.
But Fischer also told the “internationally respected religious leader” that the Federal German government supported the “claim of the Tibetans for religious and cultural autonomy, complete respect of human rights and religious freedom.” The Dalai Lama had been invited to participate in the Ecumenical Church Congress in Berlin. The Tibetan spiritual leader has also met with the president of the Bundestag–Germany’s parliament–Wolfgang Thierse. Fischer has met the Dalai Lama several times in the past.
Fischer is a member of the Green Party, which is currently a junior partner in the ruling coalition with the Social Democrat Party. The Green Party has a strong base, which supports the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. The late Petra Kelly, often referred to as the “mother of Germany’s Green Movement,” was a great admirer and supporter of the Dalai Lama.
But the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Fischer seemed to have unduly aroused the Chinese diplomats who, although popular in Germany’s diplomatic circuit, are considered oversensitive on a number of issues such as Tibet and Beijing’s persecution of the Falun Gong movement.
A spokesman of the Chinese embassy recited what many incensed Germans criticized as an “old song.” Western governments dealing with China have often been told ad nauseam and in blunt language that “Tibet is part of China, and that all questions related to Tibet are part of China’s internal affairs.” This same song and dance was how the Chinese embassy in Berlin reacted.
Even though the German Foreign Office emphasized that it recognizes Tibet as part of China, the Chinese embassy in a typically confrontational fashion dismissed the German position, saying the meeting between German politicians and the Dalai Lama repudiated the professed “one China” policy of the German government.
Indeed, the Chinese embassy added its usual spiel about the German politicians “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.” As one German follower of the Dalai Lama joked, the average Chinese is too busy making money these days to even know what goes on in Tibet. “So how can you say that the feelings of the Chinese people are hurt?” he questioned.
Indeed, many German critics, who hold the Dalai Lama in high reverence, were surprised by the grossly exaggerated reaction, indeed paranoia, of the Chinese embassy. Beijing’s embassy is seen here as a representation of a regime that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the international community but which is tolerated because of the business opportunities it provides.
Tibet Initiative Deutschland, a Germany-based organization, which espouses the cause of a free Tibet, was not happy with the low-key reception given to the Dalai Lama. The TID had, in fact, wanted German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to receive the Dalai Lama.
TID Chairman Wolfgang Grader maintained that Germany was the only Western nation whose government leader had not received the Dalai Lama. While welcoming the fact that the Dalai Lama had been received by both Fischer and Thierse, Grader was quoted as saying these meetings were not enough. He urged the German government to keep Tibet’s status “open” and to support the self-determination of the Tibetan people.
The initiative also reminded Schroeder that he had promised in the 1998 election campaign that as chancellor he would receive the Dalai Lama. The meeting has so far not taken place because of “difficulties in finding dates.” It was difficult to believe, Grader reportedly told journalists, that after five years in office, Schroeder still has not found the time to receive the Dalai Lama.
Manik Mehta is a free-lance writer based in New York.
