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I’ve been watching closely as the resolve of nations weakens in the face of the current financial strife. For now Europe is still prepared to embrace the Dalai Lama as a friend and all round good guy. But for how long? The world needs an injection of capital and China is holding all the aces. And Beijing is fully prepared to use its bulging wallet as both carrot and stick to secure its global agenda.  

South Africa is the latest country to fall foul of, or to be complicit in, China’s 3Bs international overture. It’s not clear whether they were bought, blackmailed, or bullied (or some combination of the three), but for sure China has used its leverage to get the Dalai Lama barred from a peace conference in South Africa. Via the excellent Danwei, this from Reuters:

South Africa has barred Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from entering the country to take part in a peace conference, media reports and a lobby group said on Sunday.

The newspaper said his visa was refused due to pressure from the Chinese government, prompting Archbishop Tutu to threaten to pull out of the meeting and to demand an explanation from the authorities.

The Dalai Lama was to join fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond Tutu, Martti Ahtisaari and FW de Klerk, as well as Norway’s Nobel Peace Committee, at the conference scheduled for March 27, the Sunday Independent reported.

Mandela and Tutu, among other notable Nobels had invited their old pal His Holiness to attend. And why not? It is a peace conference after all. Well, not any more. China, that great champion of non-interference, has stuck its increasingly mighty oar into the machinery to pressure South Africa into denying the Dalai Lama a visa. And the African nation didn’t so much blink as buckle at the knees.

Appeasement has all characteristics of psychological reinforcement, whereby rewarding a given behaviour only increases the likelihood of it happening again. Just ask the Poles what Chamberlain’s appeasing of Hitler did for them. Does anyone really expect a globally powerful dictatorship to stop making demands of other countries when their strongarm tactics keep getting them exactly what they want? Of course they won’t. And the demands will become greater and the screams and calls for retribution against those brave enough to deny the bully will get louder.

Is there any hope that China can set aside its natural inclination towards the petty and the unreasonable and accept that hearing all sides of an issue is not going to mean the end of the Republic? Is there any vestige of a chance that the Chinese leadership might demonstrate a capacity to use their influence as an instrument of good? As long as we keep reading stories like this one that has to be a big double negative. This bodes ill not only for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan culture, but more importantly for the prospects of a free and prosperous Africa.

As the mighty, resource-rich continent comes increasingly under Beijing’s control, the number of corrupt, despotic regimes is on the increase. With those regimes come the most appalling human rights abuses, hunger, and disease, rendering the term ‘quality of life’ no more than a sick joke. Africa is already the most impoverished continent on the planet and I simply don’t see where China’s claim of a ‘strategic partnership with our brothers’ is changing that situation for the better. Where’s the outrage at the suffering of their ‘brother’? Where’s the demand for a better standard of living and a semblance of dignity for their ‘brother’? And where’s the moral responsibility that says “stop doing this to my brother”? There is no moral responsibility in Chinese foreign policy. But what do you expect from the unelected and the unaccountable? It’s soft power run amok.

What the hell kind of nation disrespects the request of Mandela and Tutu that they sit down together for a dialogue on peace with the Dalai Lama? It’s the same nation that holds a gun to the head of Mandela and Tutu’s country.

I’m not a man of faith, but seriously; God help Africa now.

Update

Predictably, the remaining Nobel Laureates have halted plans for the conference as an expression of outrage over the South African government’s kowtowing to pressure from Beijing. Good for them.

“I am very saddened today to see that someone like the Dalai Lama, who all our laureates hold highly, has been turned down on their visa application,” Mandla Mandela told a press conference.

Archbishop Tutu has branded the government’s decision as “disgraceful” and accused the government of “shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure”, a sentiment echoed in the local media.

“This rejection by the government… is really tainting our own effort of democracy. It’s a sad day for South Africa, and it’s a sad day for Africa.”

On a side note, Youtube has been blocked again in China after video footage emerged of CCP brutality against Tibetans. And these are the people that call the Dalai Lama a terrorist. You can still see (perhaps) a snippet at Yahoo.

I place the image of the Dalai Lama above that of Hu Jintao for a good reason: His Holiness is a far, far, better person than Hu could ever hope to become and towers above the Chinese leader on any measure of human dignity, compassion, humility, and morality.

Hu began paving the way to the top of the CCP hierarchy when he displayed such alacrity in dealing with Tibetan discontent in 1989. Two decades later he is in the hot seat at Zhongnanhai and has just initiated another repressive campaign on the Himalayan Plateau.

No doubt Hu is eager to punish the indigenous inhabitants of Lhasa for having the temerity to display the anger of occupation on the eve of China’s Olympic showcase. Well, that’s what you get for systematically diluting, dismantling, and marginalising an entire culture against its will: opposition.

This week’s campaign seems to be a pre-emptive strike at deterring possible protests during the forthcoming (and newly created) anniversary of serfs’ emancipation day.  Only North Korea could possibly match this choreographed nonsense on such a grand scale.

Not content with forcing the people of Lhasa to celebrate the 50th anniversary of invasion liberation in 2001, Tibetans must now throw a party in honour of day they said goodbye to the person they respected, and still respect, above all others. The CCP book of thuggery knows no limits of brutality when allegiance is directed towards Dharamsala.

And what is the easiest way to qualify for a good beating, imprisonment, or worse? Try putting a picture of His Holiness above the mantelpiece or listen to a “reactionary tune” on your phone and you’ll find out. Want extra torture credits? Then simply wave the Tibetan flag and seek discourse over Beijing’s Tibet policy.

Cultural genocide is nothing new; and maybe there’s nothing to be done to save the Tibetans from becoming a minority in their own back yard. But that doesn’t mean we should sit back and say nothing for fear of ‘hurting’ the pathetically sensitive unelected Chinese leadership, especially when they display all the hallmarks of a global power drunk on their expanding sphere of influence.

China seems unaware that responsible behaviour, both domestically and internationally, must come before respect. And responsibility means wielding the power you have with compassion and tolerance. By this definition, for his Tibetan campaigns alone, Hu Jintao remains a figure of contempt rather than respect.