【澳大利亞人報】Dalai Lama's visit to pose another curly problem for Rudd

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Dalai Lama's visit to pose another curly problem for Rudd
Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor    | August 21, 2009
Article from:the  Australia

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25959291-5013404,00.html

      
KEVINRudd's personal China angst is about to be intensified by a request tomeet the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan leader visits Australia inDecember on a high-profile speaking tour.

Thisvisit will add -- in Beijing's eyes -- insult to the recent injury toAustralia-China relations caused by the visit here of Uighur leaderRebiya Kadeer.


The request by the Dalai Lama's representatives will accentuate thePrime Minister's dilemma, as he considers how to respond to thenosedive in the relationship after a succession of awkward events,including China's arrest of Australian Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu,the visit of Ms Kadeer and controversy over Chinese investment. On hislast visit to Australia last year, the Dalai Lama met ImmigrationMinister Chris Evans, who was then acting prime minister because MrRudd was away in Indonesia. He also briefly met Foreign MinisterStephen Smith.


The Tibetan leader met John Howard twice as prime minister but notin parliament or at The Lodge. Mr Rudd met the Dalai Lama when he wasopposition foreign affairs spokesman in 2007, and also attended aninformal parliamentary reception in his honour.


Compared with those steady days in the relationship with China, theatmosphere is incendiary now. Yet for Mr Rudd to refuse to meet theDalai Lama would in turn arouse intense domestic controversy.


Simon Bradshaw, campaign co-ordinator at the Australia TibetCouncil, said the Dalai Lama was scheduled to meet US President BarackObama in October.


"The Dalai Lama will not personally be seeking to meet Mr Rudd, buthis representatives here will make that request -- and he, and Tibetanpeople, would hope that he would be received at the highest levelpossible," Mr Bradshaw said.


This will be the sixth visit to Australia by the Dalai Lama, whose Tibetan Buddhism has gained fast-growing support.


He will be travelling, from December 1 to 10, to Sydney, Melbourneand Hobart -- with a trip to Auckland, New Zealand, for two days in themiddle. He will speak at indoor arenas to audiences of severalthousand, including at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and at MelbourneConvention Centre.


Independent senator Nick Xenophon and Greens senator SarahHanson-Young -- both among a parliamentary delegation, led by Labor MPMichael Danby, that visited the Dalai Lama at his home at Dharamsala innorth India last month -- yesterday sought to invite the exiled leaderto the distinguished visitors' gallery of the Senate during his visit.


The motion was defeated, on the grounds of precedent -- that onlyparliamentarians and heads of state from other countries had formerlyreceived such invitations -- although the Dalai Lama has addressed theUS congress and the European parliament.

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