Opinion: Democrats versus the Dalai Lama?*

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Post updated at 11:41 a.m.

Well, this proves once and for all that China’s got us by the, uh, short sales.

California’s Legislature has devoted loads of elaborate calligraphy, high-quality paper stock and legislative floor time to praising everyone from the former head of the prison guards union (the group that keeps on giving -- to politicians), to Japanese Americans interned during World War II, to the Girl Scouts and to the Rose Bowl-winning USC Trojans.

But when it came to a resolution honoring the Dalai Lama, who’s usually a slam-dunk for winning hearts and minds in the free world, the Democrats flinched.

I don’t think it was because a Republican sponsored the resolution honoring Tibetans’ spiritual and temporal leader, on the 50th anniversary of his escape during the Chinese crackdown on Tibet. My excellent colleague Eric Bailey, in his story about this, quoted the resolution’s sponsor, San Luis Obispo Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, as saying that people from the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had worked the halls lobbying against the measure.

Blakeslee had a copy of the letter from the consul general warning that the resolution could damage U.S.-Chinese relations, that Tibet never had been an independent country anyway, and that China had in fact liberated Tibet from ‘feudal serfdom and theocratic rule.’

The Dalai Lama is a figure who has something for both sides: He’s a man of peace and he opposes Communist China in Tibet, for starters. President George W. Bush, Sen. (now Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have all praised him.

So what’s the Democrats’ problem? Why did they cry ‘uncle’ and knuckle under? They did, you know -- they said the matter needed further study, and sent the resolution off to the graveyard of the Rules Committee. How much further study, one wonders -- another 50 years?

Over the last decade or two, the U.S. has mired itself deeper into debt. This is partly because of the laissez-faire regulatory approach that’s now got us foundering on the financial rocks, and partly because, as liberal writer Barbara Ehrenreich observed, credit cards (also financed to a big extent by China) are what working Americans were given instead of pay raises. A Harvard economist calculated that between the 1970s and 2004, the average American worker’s income fell by 16%. To keep paying the bills, Americans resorted to plastic.

Along with all the other financial follies of the moment, we now see another consequence to being beholden to China: California Democrats in days of yore would have fallen all over themselves to honor so powerful a figure. Now, the richest state in supposedly the most powerful nation in the world is too afraid of the consequences of a piece of paper that could rile a rising superpower. And it punted.

What a sad state.

*Update: Here’s the Democrats’ explanation for what happened: Bay Area Assemblywoman Fiona Ma said the new administration should be left alone to set its course on international relations with China. A sensible point, and yet the Legislature has, in years past, had no problem passing symbolic legislation about other nations’ human rights issues, countries like Ethiopia, Turkey, Laos and Thailand. And last year, the Legislature passed a resolution very similar to the one it ‘disappeared’ into the Rules Committee now.