[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23583]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  ON THE DALAI LAMA'S VISIT THIS WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. The front page of the Washington Post yesterday featured a 
story about the Dalai Lama's visit to Washington this week--a trip 
which will be marked by what doesn't take place. For the first time 
since 1991, this spiritual leader, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, will 
not be afforded a meeting with the President of the United States. This 
is a mistake which has far-reaching consequences.
  China has initiated a global effort to stop heads of state from 
hosting the Dalai Lama. As the Wall Street Journal editorial page 
pointed out yesterday, ``China routinely assails countries whose 
leaders meet with the Dalai Lama, targeting France and Germany in 
recent years by cutting off diplomatic exchanges and canceling 
conferences and the like.''
  The Dalai Lama is set to travel to New Zealand and Australia later 
this year and, as the Post reported, ``he has yet to secure a 
commitment from their leaders to meet.'' Will these countries follow 
our lead?
  I've been to Tibet. I've seen the Buddhist monks and nuns in Drapchi 
prison. I've met frightened Tibetans who quietly showed me their 
forbidden photo of the Dalai Lama. I wonder if their plight received 
even passing mention during internal White House deliberations about 
whether to meet with the Dalai Lama before the President's November 
trip to China. Or, were they simply a nuisance in the context of a 
larger bilateral relationship?
  An unnamed administration official in the Post story justified the 
decision by saying ``this President is not interested in symbolism or 
photo ops but in deliverables.'' I, too, am interested in deliverables, 
as is the human rights community, but I'm interested in symbols. And 
the President should be, too. Symbolism is powerful. If we surrender to 
this Chinese government, we have surrendered something far greater than 
the President may realize.
  The Tiananmen Square demonstrators of 20 years ago understood that 
symbols speak volumes. They carried papier-mache models of the Statute 
of Liberty. Ronald Reagan, too, understood symbols. He understood there 
was something symbolically stirring about him standing at the 
Brandenberg Gate and calling on the then-Soviet leader to tear down 
that wall that divided the people of East and West Berlin.
  Ronald Reagan understood there was something symbolically powerful 
about invoking the name of Solzhenitsyn when he spoke at the Danilov 
Monastery in Russia--the very same dissident who more than a decade 
earlier, reminiscent of this week's events, was denied a visit with 
President Ford who was worried about upsetting the Russians prior to a 
summit.
  This administration may not be interested in symbolism, but that will 
come as devastating, devastating news to millions around the world who 
yearn for freedom, who cry out for basic human rights, and who expect 
America, our country, to be their champion when their own voices have 
been silenced.
  What about the Coptic Christians in Egypt? The Baha'is in Iran? What 
about the oppressed citizens of Burma and North Korea and Vietnam? They 
should rightly be alarmed by the treatment of the Dalai Lama, as this 
is just one more example of a growing pattern in this administration of 
sidelining human rights.
  It's not too late. I call on the President to invite the Dalai Lama 
to the White House; to reclaim the moral high ground and not kowtow to 
the Chinese government that brutally oppresses its people.
  I call on the President to stand side by side with his holiness--a 
man of peace--and align America once again with the oppressed, not with 
the oppressors.

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