As I asked yesterday, what exactly does President Obama gain from breaking with18 years of precedent and refusing to meet with the Dalai Lama? Have we received anything in return? I am not against negotiating, and foreign policy is always a mix of principles and interests — you sometimes have to cede one to promote the other. But in this case, for what are we ceding? The Obama administration has set out some criteria against which to judge this seemingly one-sided concession to Beijing. First, let’s see if Obama moves the Chinese an inch on disarming North Korea and Iran. Second, let’s see if his new “non- symbolic” approach to Tibet actually gets China to respect Tibetan culture and religious freedom.
Meanwhile, other, less powerful countries are following our shameful lead.
– Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.