Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

MEXICO: Dalai Lama’s Visit Proves Uncomfortable for President Fox

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Oct 5 2004 (IPS) - President Vicente Fox welcomed the Dalai Lama to Mexico this week – but he did so from a distance, after deciding not to meet with the Tibetan Buddhist leader in person.

Analysts say Fox’s decision was made under pressure from China, which views the Dalai Lama as both a "religious puppet" and an exiled political figure who promotes Tibet’s independence from China.

For many observers, Fox’s attitude contradicts his claims that he defends human rights under any circumstances and respects all political positions. This is the excuse he has used in the past to meet with opponents of Cuban President Fidel Castro, despite the friction this has caused between the two governments.

"We welcome the Dalai Lama to our country, a country of values, a country of families, a country that is working hard to build a better future," Fox said Monday at a ceremony where new homes were being turned over to low-income families.

While Fox was delivering his message, the Tibetan religious leader was many kilometres away, carrying out the activities on the agenda for his visit to Mexico, which ends Friday.

According to spokespeople for the Mexican government – which signed a number of agreements with China in August to bolster relations between the two countries – Mexico firmly believes that there is and only should be one China. In other words, Mexico does not look upon aspirations for Tibetan independence as legitimate.

For his part, the Dalai Lama commented on Sunday, after arriving in Mexico, that he does not always meet with the presidents of the countries he visits. Recognising that a meeting with Fox might be awkward for the country, he said that it was not a problem for him, and added that he did not want to cause any problems.

The itinerary for the Dalai Lama’s visit to Mexico includes numerous public speaking engagements, where he will address spiritual matters. Meetings have also been scheduled with members of the Mexican Congress and Mexico City Mayor Andrés López Obrador.

In addition, the Buddhist leader will be awarded an honorary doctorate from the Ibero-American University, a private institution run by the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church.

China has openly voiced its opposition to any official government contacts with the Dalai Lama, who is an advocate of Tibetan autonomy as well as a religious leader.

China occupied Tibet in 1951, and subsequently dismantled its traditional cultural and religious systems, as well as its feudal agricultural system, which was replaced with communes.

In 1959, after a failed uprising against the Chinese, the Dalai Lama and his followers fled to India, where he has lived in exile ever since.

Ren Jingyu, the Chinese ambassador to Mexico, told the local press that the Dalai Lama "is not only a mere religious puppet, but also a political exile who backs separatist aspirations," and should therefore not be received in any country.

Analysts say that to avoid ruffling China’s feathers and endangering the recently signed bilateral agreements, Fox chose not to meet in person with the Dalai Lama – who could have been received in his capacity as a Noble Peace Prize laureate, as some have pointed out.

Nevertheless, this did not stop the president’s wife, Marta Sahagún, from requesting a private audience with the Buddhist leader, who was also greeted by a number of lower-ranking officials.

In the meantime, while the invitation for the Dalai Lama to address members of Congress was not cancelled, the reception was given a lower profile, and the Chinese government was allowed to organise a photography exhibit in the halls of Congress, which reportedly portrays the followers of Buddhism in a negative light.

Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister in the Fox administration, said the president made a serious error in refusing an official meeting with the Dalai Lama. Fox’s decision was totally inconsistent with the Mexican government’s traditional respect for independence and for human rights, he asserted.

Hugo Valdemar, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico City, voiced a similar opinion, saying that the government should have welcomed the Dalai Lama for his role as a defender of human rights, instead of "bowing down to pressures from China."

And Marco Antonio Karam, a representative of the Buddhist organisation Casa Tibet Mexico, said Fox’s refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama showed a lack of political savvy and an inability to grasp the importance of this visitor, whom Karam called "the world’s leading promoter of human rights."

All three observers recalled that when the Dalai Lama visited Mexico in July 1989, he met with then president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994).

In the view of Manuel Estrada, a Mexican student who follows the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, Fox basically ignored the Dalai Lama’s visit out of "fear of irritating China."

Agreements recently signed between the Fox administration and China are seen as crucial for alleviating the negative effects on Mexico of the Asian giant’s ever-expanding presence in global markets.

One of the agreements is aimed at fighting the influx of counterfeit merchandise from China, which has had a serious impact on Mexico.

Others seek to achieve greater balance in bilateral trade, which currently stands at around 10 billion dollars a year, with Mexican exports to China accounting for a mere 500 million of the total.

Unlike other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, which have capitalised on the huge Chinese market by supplying raw materials like iron, soybeans and copper, Mexico has been hit hard by competition from Asia, particularly with regard to manufactured goods.

In addition, China has gradually come to replace Mexico as the world’s second largest exporter to the United States (Canada remains the first).

Between 2001 and 2003, Chinese exports to the United States grew by 29.4 percent, while Mexican exports rose by a mere 1.5 percent, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.