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California Democrats hesitate to honour Dalai Lama

Assembly members balk at a resolution to celebrate Tibetans' leader and mark their revolt against China. Republicans accuse them of caving to pressure from the Chinese consulate.

By Eric Bailey | Los Angeles Times

A file photo of the Dalai Lama after addressing a press conference on 10 March 2009. Democrats of the California Legislature balked at a resolution to honour the Dalai Lama and mark the 50th anniversary of Tibetan uprising.File photo/AFP/Manan Vatsyayana/India

The California Legislature rarely balks at bloviating en masse during its frequent and normally routine passage of resolutions to honour the dead, herald the past or celebrate the most innocuous of achievements.

But on Monday, the subject of the Dalai Lama was apparently too hot to handle.

Assembly Democrats balked at a resolution to honour Tibet’s spiritual leader and mark the 50th anniversary of his people’s revolt against Chinese rule, and referred it to a committee. In response, minority Republicans accused them of buckling under to China’s communist government.

The resolution’s author, Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), claimed that representatives of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had worked the Capitol hallways to lobby against his measure — and that the Democrats yielded to the pressure. He released a letter that Consul General Gao Zhansheng sent to state lawmakers warning that the resolution would damage US-Chinese relations.

Zhansheng’s letter argues that Tibet was never an independent country and that it was never invaded or occupied by China. In fact, it says, the communist government had pushed through reforms liberating Tibet from “feudal serfdom and theocratic rule.”

“As the world economy faces a grim situation, it is all the more important for the most developed country and the biggest developing country in the world to cross the river in a common boat and proceed hand in hand,” Zhansheng’s letter concludes.

Blakeslee called the letter a “shocking revisionist account of history,” and pushed for a floor vote Monday afternoon.

Democrats, saying only that the matter needed further study, referred the resolution to the Assembly Rules Committee.

There, Blakeslee and other Republicans said, it will probably wither and die.

Copyright © 2009 Los Angeles Times

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