The Tibetan-American community in New England has been preparing for the Dalai Lama’s arrival and have been taking part in a labor of love of sorts:

In the basement and driveway of a humble Malden house, the carpenters are building a throne.

Across town, in Medford, a lab technician spends his nights sewing embroidered silk for the drapery.

Three Tibetan-American men, two of them former monks, have devoted much of the last month to constructing the 9-foot high chair on which a cross-legged Dalai Lama will sit for a pair of lectures at Gillette Stadium next month.

The resulting throne is the most visible manifestation of the efforts by Boston’s small Tibetan community to prepare for the Dalai Lama’s four-day visit to the region, which begins April 29. But the throne also sheds light on the unusual backstories of local Tibetans, many of whom escaped difficult lives in Tibet or lived in exile in India before arriving in the United States.

The needleworker, Kunga Namgyal, leads the ordinary life of a research scientist at Shire, a biopharmaceutical company. But Namgyal is also the son and grandson of famed Tibetan tailors – his father was a tailor for the Dalai Lama – and now, at night, when he can steal time from playing with his son and dining with his wife, he sits on the floor by a china cabinet filled with Buddha statues and tries to remember what his own dad taught him about sewing.

One gem: While conventional sewing often involves pointing a needle away from the artisan, Tibetan Buddhists sew with the needle pointing toward themselves, to symbolize compassion for others who won’t get poked.

Hopefully, when the Dalai Lama returns to the United States in October (according to media reports), the US government will show him the respect and honor he deserves by granting him an official state visit with the President and the Secretary of State, although the Obama administration seems a bit too worried China might get “angry.”

Here is just one example that is again back in the news:

Thousands of buildings at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan have such poorly installed wiring that American troops face life-threatening risks, a top inspector for the Army says.
“It was horrible — some of the worst electrical work I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Childs, a master electrician and the top civilian expert in an Army safety survey. Childs told CNN that “with the buildings the way they are, we’re playing Russian roulette.”

[snip]

He said problems are “everywhere” in Iraq, where 18 U.S. troops have died by electrocution since 2003. All deaths occurred in different circumstances and different locations, but many happened on U.S. bases being managed by various military contractors.

Most have heard some of the stories about the war profiteers who suddenly appeared to take their place at the public pig-trough of multi-million (and billion) dollar defense contracts at the beginning of the Iraq War- for example, the case of the young American arms dealer who was being paid tens of millions of dollars to provide the military with old, crappy, dangerous, illegally obtained munitions from China only to have them either not work or worse, malfunction when it mattered most. Luckily, the feds caught up with him.

The stories of fraud, abuse and outright theft on the part of some of the contractors are just to numerous to mention here but I think all of us can agree that during a time of economic crisis such as we have now, the last thing the government needs is to be paying out billions of funds to corporations which never should have received contracts to begin with.

It goes without saying that not all defense contractors provide shoddy services but what has become problematic is how the government seems totally unable to ensure any sort of accountability for quality of services and products, not to mention cost.

This latest example of bullying from China was a depressing reality check which further solidified the view that human rights would take a back seat to economic interests, particularly where China is concerned.

As the day progressed yesterday and word spread of South Africa’s actions, there was an increase in anger and outrage and some big name conference participants put South Africa on notice that they found the governments treatment of the Dalai Lama unacceptable and publicly announced they would boycott the conference altogether. Today, there is now word the conference has been canceled altogether, at the behest of the SA government and it would be reasonable.

In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.

The switch comes despite implied assurances over the years that the agency would continue to buy American whenever possible.
“Of course, we considered how many U.S. jobs would be affected by this move,” said a USAID official who spoke on the condition that he would not be named. But he said the reasons for the change included lower prices (2 cents versus more than 5 cents for U.S.-made condoms) and the fact that Congress dropped “buy American language” in a recent appropriations bill.

And while the picture to the left is a box of Chinese condoms which sell in China, the question I have is when Chinese-made condoms are sold in this country, is it obvious they are originally from China?

Also, get a load of this creepy Chinese condom story, here.

When Secretary Clinton went on her first overseas trip to Asia, she managed to appease a nervous Chinese Government by declaring that China’s worsening human rights, rigid communism and toxic exports (literally) would not get in the way of what Clinton presaged would be a beautiful future together. And now, South Africa has bent over and grabbed it’s ankles to appease China by, get this, denying a VISA to the Dalai Lama, who was slated to attend an international peace conference:

South Africa has refused the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference in Johannesburg this week, a presidential spokesman said.

The Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Laureate did not receive a visa because it was not in South Africa’s interest for him to attend, said Thabo Masebe.

South Africa thinks that, if the Dalai Lama attended the conference, the focus would shift away from the 2010 World Cup — the global soccer championship it will host next year.
“We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet,” Masebe said, adding that South Africa has gained much from its trading relationship with China.

[snip]

A representative of the Dalai Lama said he was not surprised by the decision. The Tibetan government in exile thinks that China has pressured many countries to refuse a visit by the Dalai Lama, according to Chhime Chhoekyapa, an aide in Dharamsala, India.

To the credit of former South African President, F.W. De Klerk and Archbishop Desmund Tutu, they are boycotting the conference and hopefully others will too. The question is, how many other countries will buckle to China’s thuggish tactics?

UPDATE: Maybe China’s latest economic posturing will give the the administration (and in particular, the State Dept.) cause to question China’s intentions with respect to the US.

UPDATE II: The website Foreign Policy has a good column discussing how South Africa may be shooting itself in the foot by slamming the door in the face of the Dalai Lama.

Of course, not everyone agrees with Obama’s agenda or more accurately, the means by which he is attempting to achieve certain ends, but that is to be expected- bipartisanship and civil discourse are lofty goals but after watching the last few weeks of acting out by Rush Limbaugh, the blatant economic hypocrisy of some in the GOP and the way the Democrats, particularly in the House, seem intent on making Obama’s job as hard as possible by being as unreasonable as possible [ex: adding certain nonsense to the stimulus package], it becomes more and more apparent that political infighting and partisan rancor are the mainstay of the DC establishment, and of the mainstream media in particular.

While it is far too soon to judge the President’s success or failure in any given area, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria has written a commentary about his initial thoughts on Team Obama’s foreign policy and I agree with about 99% of it. I like Zakaria and am trying to make a point of watching his Sunday show, ‘GPS’, on CNN.

In a dangerous high-seas game of chicken, five Chinese boats harassed and came perilously close to colliding with a U.S. Naval surveillance ship off the coast of Hainan Island Sunday, after the Chinese military ordered the ship to leave the area or “suffer the consequences.” The Navy dispatched a destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon, to the vicinity as a precaution.

[snip]

After repeated attempts to reach the Chinese ships over “bridge-to-bridge” radios failed, the crew of the unarmed Impeccable took defensive measures, turning firehoses on one of the Chinese ships, at which point the Chinese crewmembers on deck stripped down to their underwear.[emphasis mine]

Ok, there is a lot about this that reeks, but I have a question- what is with the Chinese crewmembers stripping down to their underwear? When the US sprayed them with the water hoses, they of course got wet, but to strip down right there immediately seems a bit strange, unless I am missing something?

And in other depressing news from China, today (Tuesday, March 10) marks the anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising 50 years ago and the resulting flight into exile by the Dalai Lama. On this anniversary, the Dalai Lama has this to say:

“These 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet,” the 73-year-old spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists said from exile in Dharamsala, India. “Today, the religion, culture, language and identity … are nearing extinction; in short, the Tibetan people are regarded like criminals deserving to be put to death.”

I blogged ad nauseum about China’s whimsical disregard for human rights, here and the recently-stated US response from our Secretary of State, here.

For the past five or so months, Chinese troops have been making their way into Tibet to quash any “uprising”, but what they will really be quashing is any pro-Dalai Lama speech, observance of Tibetan Buddhism or peaceful pro-Tibet gatherings. Based up past experience with the Chinese government, the people of Tibet also know that the Chinese military will go into the monesteries and round up monks and nuns and imprison and torture them unless they denounce the Dalai Lama. A couple of months ago, the Chinese authorities rounded up at least 50 people in Tibet for “spreading rumors”.

And our politicians are worried about Cuba?

And that made me wonder- if just five or six years ago conventional wisdom said that countries like China, India etc. would never sign on to major international environmental efforts unless the US showed a real commitment to those efforts, why can’t the US take that stance with respect to international human rights as well?

We have a new President and thus far, the international reaction to Obama seems quite positive as he seems to be sending the message he is willing to work cooperatively along-side other nations to achieve common goals, even if that means opening a dialogue with countries more hostile to US interests. Doesn’t this provide the US with an opportunity for a new dialogue about human rights with countries like China, Sudan, etc.?

Or is that totally unrealistic?

For my tediously long post on Secretary of State Clinton’s trip to China and resulting reaction to her downplaying human rights, see here. I’ve added a lot of updates which highlight the ongoing human rights crisis and abuses in China and how the issue is inextricably intertwined with economics.