President Obama and the Dalai Lama will meet over Chinese objections. The President does not support Tibetan independence; however, he supports a solution which involves neither independence nor assimilation, along with the Dalai Lama.
Obama is scheduled to host the Nobel laureate for a private, morning meeting in the Map Room of the White House. Traditionally, when Obama meets with presidents and prime ministers, he hosts them in the Oval Office and allows reporters to witness a short portion of the meeting. The decision to hold the meeting elsewhere and to close the meeting to reporters could signal an attempt to avoid the appearance of a formal meeting between two heads of state.
The US supports China talking with the Dalai Lama without preconditions.
Despite China's bluster, there is increasing cooperation between the US and China behind the scenes.
Hours before the meeting scheduled at the White House on Friday, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno met with his Chinese counterpart, Lt. Gen. Wang Ning, at the Defense Ministry in Beijing, before he heads north on Saturday to tour the headquarters of China's Shenyang Military Region.
Odierno said that that both countries had "incredibly professional armies" that should work more closely together, in an effort to propel forward a relationship that has progressed by fits and starts over the past decade.
Wang said China "sincerely hoped" for more substantial relations with the U.S. military through practical cooperation.
Both sides said they looked forward to discussing international and regional security matters, a nod to bitter disputes between China and two U.S. allies — Japan and the Philippines — over territorial claims in the East and South China Seas that have raised alarms over the possibility of armed conflict.
A quick check of the news outlets show that Al-Jazeera,
ABC and
NBC have picked it up. However, CBS (from what I can see), NPR, and FOX News have not.
After World War II, the UN was created as a form of victor's justice. The US, Russia, China, UK, and France, the five main powers, formed a security council in which each of them have veto power. This means that contrary to popular belief among conspiracy theorists, the US can never give up its sovereignty through the UN because the Security Council is the only enforcement arm of the UN. The system is set up to force cooperation between the five powers that make up the Security Council. Therefore, the US has an obligation to act in cooperation with the rest of the four main members of the Security Council as well as the rest of the world.
However, in order to maintain credibility, the five permanent members of the Security Council still have an obligation to follow international law. The purpose of the formation of the UN was to prevent a third world war in light of the fact that it could result in the annihilation of the human race.
Among aspects of international law that are relevant include the right to self-determination. As stated in a General Assembly resolution on granting independence to former colonies:
1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
3. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.
4. All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected.
5. Immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.
6. Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
7. All States shall observe faithfully and strictly the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the present Declaration on the basis of equality, non-interference in the internal affairs of all States, and respect for the sovereign rights of all peoples and their territorial integrity.
This need for self-determination is borne out by science. The journal
Psychological Inquiry, in 2000, wrote:
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction.
Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.
It has frequently been argued in the past that self-determination would undermine the social stability that a nation provides. This has been used as a pretext to deny independence. However, without a natural right of collective self-determination, the US would not have been able to break away from England in 1776.
The Chinese policy of colonization of Tibet is at odds, therefore, with international law, the same international law that they accepted when they joined the UN and replaced Taiwan in the early 1970's. It is also at odds with Marxist thought. From Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism:"
By the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, we mean the attitude of the different classes of society towards imperialist policy in connection with their general ideology.
The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extraordinarily dense and widespread network of relationships and connections which subordinates not only the small and medium, but also the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the increasingly intense struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other countries, on the other hand, cause the propertied classes to go over entirely to the side of imperialism. “General” enthusiasm over the prospects of imperialism, furious defence of it and painting it in the brightest colours—such are the signs of the times. Imperialist ideology also penetrates the working class. No Chinese Wall separates it from the other classes.
A solution of this conflict would require a fair and impartial evaluation of the aspirations and wishes of the Tibetan people along with a commitment from both parties to respect their expressed wishes.