Calcutta Telegraph, India
March 23 2008
Dalai goof-up in nuclear deal haste
K.P. NAYAR
Washington, March 22: India allowed Nancy Pelosi, second in the line
of succession to the US presidency, to travel to Dharamsala and meet
the Dalai Lama in the misplaced expectation that the gesture would
wipe off some of the bad blood caused by the stymied nuclear deal
during foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit here from Sunday.
But the effort to bend over backwards to the point of risking India’s
historically calibrated Tibet policy has cut no ice with the Bush
administration.
White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe told reporters who contacted
him during the long Good Friday weekend that the Bush administration
had no comment on Pelosi’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, instead of
praising the Indian gesture that South Block had hoped for.
State department officials who are garrulous in private about such
issues are stupefied that the Manmohan Singh government has allowed
the US to fire at China from India’s shoulders in total defiance of
their own expectations to clear Mukherjee’s pathway in Washington.
India’s questionable decision to allow the Speaker of the US House of
Representatives to criticise China on Indian soil in the company of
the Tibetan political leader whom Beijing views as a threat to its
territorial integrity is in sharp contrast to the White House’s own
policy of discretion.
Mukherjee, who will meet George W. Bush on Monday afternoon for 30
minutes, will find the US President paying no more than lip service
to the Tibetan cause.
Bush has refused to cancel his visit to Beijing for the Olympics,
saying: `I am going to the Olympics (because) I view the Olympics as
a sporting event’ and not as a political platform.
The President needs China to restrain North Korea’s nuclear programme
and because Beijing’s investments in US treasury bonds are vital in
the looming financial crisis here.
A senior South Block official, who seriously doubted the wisdom of
India’s new activism on Tibet, told The Telegraph that no one told
Mukherjee before Pelosi met him or in the run-up to his trip to
Washington that Bush has so far remained totally silent on the
Chinese crackdown in Tibet.
The official regretted that in the ill-considered haste to shore up
support in the US Congress for ratification of the 123 Agreement to
operationalise the nuclear deal, Mukherjee was also not briefed that
Pelosi was a maverick who has no qualms about putting US strategic
objectives at risk for electoral gains.
Five months ago, her unwavering pursuit of a congressional resolution
to hold Turkey accountable for a genocide of Armenians nearly a
century ago prompted Ankara to recall its ambassador to Washington
and threaten to cut off the use of its military bases that send
supplies to US troops in Iraq.
All because her home state of California is home to the largest
number of politically active Armenians who constitute a vote bank for
five Democratic members of the US House of Representatives from that
state.
While Bush is silent on Tibet, the three candidates in the fray to
succeed him next year have used the freedom of electioneering to
outdo one another in professing support for human rights for Tibetans
and exploiting the fears and suspicions among American voters about
China.
Even so, Republican John McCain has been restrained: he did not
discuss Tibet at all during his 45-minute meeting today with French
President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, but did not miss an opportunity
at a news conference later to roundly criticise China.
As such, by allowing Pelosi to travel to Dharamsala for a photo
opportunity with the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, India may
have unwittingly waded into US electoral waters.
Pelosi is certain to make the most of the photo opportunity she had
with the Dalai Lama both for her own re-election and in support of
the eventual Democratic nominee to be the next US President.
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