WASHINGTON — President Bush presented the Dalai Lama with Congress’ highest civilian honor Wednesday, pressing China to engage with Tibet’s exiled leader in his most significant embrace of a man whose cause and global following is a constant irritant to Beijing.
Tibet’s spiritual and temporal leader accepted the Congressional Gold Medal from Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate President pro tem Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., in a Capitol Rotunda ceremony that had even some lawmakers dabbing their eyes.
The event marked the first time a U.S. president has appeared in public with the Dalai Lama, who from his first White House visit two decades ago has agreed to private presidential meetings, in deference to China.
“An era that has seen an unprecedented number of nations embrace individual freedom has also witnessed the stubborn endurance of religious repression. Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away,” Bush said before a sea of dark- clad politicians punctuated by the saffron and maroon of Tibetan Buddhist monks.
“And that is why I will continue to urge the leaders of China to welcome the Dalai Lama to China,” Bush said. “They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation.”
For more than 50 years, the man considered by believers to be the living embodiment of the Buddha has led the struggle for autonomy and religious freedom for his nation of 6 million people. Beijing has controlled the rugged Himalayan nation since 1951, when Communist troops forcibly replaced its quiet self-rule with Chinese authority.
Eight years later, the Dalai Lama fled across the mountainous border into exile in India. His encouragement of his homeland’s nonviolent rejection of Chinese rule has earned him international renown and humanitarian awards, including the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
China, in the midst of the Communist Party’s 17th National Congress, reacted with fury to news of the honor, and had “solemnly demanded” cancellation of the event. Beijing considers the Dalai Lama to be a separatist, feudal leader whose onetime demand for independence has not changed, despite his efforts to compromise on limited self-rule.
The situation is particularly personal for Chinese President Hu Jintao, an avowed friend of the United States who earlier in his career was involved in the Tibet crackdown. Bush told Hu, who will be acclaimed for a second five-year term at the Communist Party congress, of his plan to attend the medal ceremony this summer, while the two leaders attended an Asian summit in Australia.
“They didn’t like it, of course, but I don’t think it’s going to damage – severely damage – relations. … I don’t think it ever damages relations when the American president talks about religious tolerance and religious freedom,” Bush told reporters before Wednesday’s ceremony.
In a sometimes-rambling speech punctuated by laughter and self-deprecating asides about his faulty English, the Dalai Lama thanked “American friends … that have stood with us in the most critical of times and under the most intense pressure.”
“The consistency of American support for Tibet has not gone unnoticed in China. That this has caused some tension in the U.S.-Sino relations, I feel a sense of regret.”
He praised China for its powerhouse economy and technological advances. And he sought, as he has frequently in the past, to assure China that he has no designs on independence for Tibet.
“I am seeking a meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people,” he said. “There is no hidden agenda.”
