CHINA SPANKS FRANCE . . . AGAIN!

After crumbling under China's schoolyard bullying this summer, French President Sarkozy sent his wife to meet with His Holiness.  Now, having agreed to meet on December 6 with His Holiness in Poland--not even on French soil--the French President is once again feeling the wrath of the Chinese government.  The language of the current disapproval is true to form:  vague, foreboding, angry, threatening, self-important.  China realizes that the Dalai Lama has garnered Western support for many of his causes, and this of course enrages the Chinese. 

The Tibetan cause, however you define it, is being played out, however you feel about it, on the world stage, with a distinguished group of commentators and power-brokers in the audience.  When we consider the ongoing and epic tragedy in the Congo, for example, and acknowledge how comparatively little attention it is receiving, we also have to acknowledge, as the Chinese have been forced grudgingly to do, that the Tibetan campaign has been waged with considerable skill and adroitness. 

Commentators on the American political scene have already suggested that the Obama campaign, developed over the past four years, is worthy of extended analysis.  Let me suggest that His Holiness's campaign, waged over the last half-century, falls into the same category. 

An honest question:  Has there ever been a similar case, where a people living in utter geographical and political isolation, moves from complete anonymity on the world stage to a position of such widespread recognition and approval as that of the Tibetans in the 21st century? 

We might debate the effects of such recognition, of course.  We might wonder at the motivations involved, both of the Tibetans who engineered the campaign and the Westerners, particularly, who have so eagerly embraced the campaign.  But that the Tibetan crisis has reached the world's attention can't be denied. 

And this, of course, is what angers the Chinese.  Stay tuned, as the Tibetans convene in Dharamsala next week for a very important meeting.  The Chinese propaganda machine will be chugging along at full speed.