Rev. Danny Fisher

“Highly placed government sources” have told the Times of India that the Obama Administration has contacted the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama about “a meeting between the two leaders in what appears to be a considered decision, given China’s intense resentment of any official contact with the Dalai Lama whom it reviles as a ‘splittist’.”

China’s anger has only increased after the violent protests ahead of last year’s Beijing Olympics and sees the Dalai Lama as the rallying point for Tibetan separatists. Perhaps anticipating that Obama may want to meet the Dalai Lama, China had on April 23 officially “warned” the US president against meeting the supreme spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

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It does remain to be seen whether Obama meets him “privately” like his predecessor George Bush or officially in the Oval Office. Bush had met the Tibetan spiritual leader in 2007 at his White House residence, apparently as a figleaf of sorts to calm a livid China.