US President Barack Obama welcomed Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama to the White House. The meeting however was not held at the Oval Room. The US President last met the Dalai Lama at the White House in 2011 to hold talks with him which triggered an angry response from Beijing. Hours before the current meeting also, China had urged the US to cancel the event. Beijing stated that the meeting was a gross interference in China’s internal affairs, a severe violation of codes of international relations and would seriously impair China-US relations.
The meeting comes at a critical time in the relations between China and the US. Washington has been expressing grave concern about China’s increasingly assertive behaviour concerning neighbours such as Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines over disputed islands in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. At the same time, economic relations between the US and China cannot be relegated to the backyard. The US can hardly neglect Chinese sentiments as Beijing controls $ 1.28 trillion in US treasury bonds. China is worried that the meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama will focus attention on the human rights situation in Tibet. The US National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden underlined that Washington supported the Dalai Lama’s attitude but recognized Tibet as a part of the People’s Republic of China which is one of the big five members of the UN Security Council with veto rights. Officially, US condemnation of the alleged suppression of the people of Tibet will have drastic consequences and an official statement to that effect is unlikely. However, the meeting may have an indirect impact on India-China relations because of the Chinese territorial claim in Arunachal Pradesh.