On Thursday, the current French Prime Minister told his parliament that France hopes to strengthen ties with China, a relationship which has hit rock bottom since the 1960s after the obnoxious French President met with the Dalai Lama in Poland last year.
He said that France needs China and the world needs China to get out of the recession and also, insisted that the French President has every right to meet the religious leader. Then he continued to say that Tibet is an integral part of China and respect its sovereignty over the territory.
You do not need to be a smart person to see through this conniving veil of “faked diplomacy” to sense that the statement or the words that come out from this politician is insincere.
I do agree that every political person has the right to meet any known citizen of China but when Sarkozy who is holding the highest post in the country and also, representing the European Union (EU) as the rotating President, the meeting incident carried more substance and significance. If I am not mistaken, he was the first European leader to do so while holding the rotating EU presidency. Furthermore, by providing first class treatment to a person branded as a “dissident” and a “separatist” in China who has been trying to push his Greater Tibet dreams, which I believe is totally unacceptable by the majority of Han Chinese in the country, there is without doubt where his support will be. Don’t bother to ask the nearly 40% or more of the Han Chinese who lives in Tibet and the surrounding areas, the answer would be the same “no” to the meeting.
Two years ago, the then Japanese Prime Minister being the person of the highest authority in the country continued to visit a sensitive War Shrine enraging a broad section of the people in East Asia (China and the two Koreas) and he was made “persona non-grata” by the Chinese. Now he is an ordinary citizen, he can visit the Shrine every day if he wishes and the Chinese people could not care less.
From the Chinese government perspective, the meeting incident is very serious as it is an act of giving encouragement to the Dalai Lama to further his hidden agenda. If the French Administration continues to demonstrate its pretenses in understanding this very simple matter, how could you expect the Chinese government to reciprocate in the correct manner? If the issue is not resolved how can the French government desire to take the relationship to a strategic partnership? I wonder?
Again using the same approach the French did earlier, the government will be sending former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to visit China next week with the hope to improve relations.
This is not the first incident. When the Olympic touch run went passed Paris, there were lots of unfriendly comments and the police was seen to be “friendly” to the protesters in disrupting the ceremony.
The Chinese people are starting to question why the French consistently and constantly antagonize China with a series of negative acts. They are also asking why the French and the Western nations need to consistently challenge China's sovereignty and territorial rights.
China should not accept these hypocritical so called "European values" as an excuse to justify the French President meeting with the Dalai Lama. By meeting with the Dalai Lama, it clearly shows that the French would want the Dalai Lama as its “strategic partner” rather than with the Chinese people. You cannot have the cake and eat it as well. If the French government really treasures the stable relationship with the Chinese government and its people it should discontinue hurting the sovereignty interest of the Chinese people,
As an overseas Chinese and if I am entrusted as an advisor to the Chinese government, I would tell the Chinese government to ignore the French Prime Minister to mend ties. There is no assurance from him that such an incident would not be repeated in the future because of the French Leader so called principled “European values” which cannot be set aside for the development of a stronger relationship for the mutual benefits of both people across the continent. The French people must also remember that the Chinese also have certain “values” and rights which are imbedded in its rich culture for over 3000 years. The Chinese has a saying in order to gain trust in a relationship you need to do all the fine positive things and if you want respect, you must earn it.
China can do without France but can France do without China?
This insincere approach is obviously not the way.
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