Nancy Pelosi gives her support to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. A Presidential candidate couldn’t do that — China would come calling. Anyway this trip was arranged long before the “controversy” in Tibet (but anytime is a bad time to see the DL in China’s eyes.)

“If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, told an overwhelmingly Tibetan audience of around 2,000 people in the courtyard of the town’s main temple, Tsulakhang.

The visit by Ms. Pelosi, accompanied by nine other members of Congress, most of them Democrats, was arranged some time ago as part of a visit to India. As it happened, though, it came on the heels of the largest protests in Tibet in nearly two decades, followed by a broad crackdown by China, and almost nonstop demonstrations in solidarity in this city, where the Tibetan government in exile has its base.

The timing could not have been better, at least for the Americans. It was unclear what the visit would yield for Tibetans or even for the Dalai Lama, other than a symbolic boost. Certainly Ms. Pelosi’s visit received more coverage from the news media than it might otherwise have; the protests in Tibet have brought reporters from around the world to this small Indian hill town.

And more on the media-friendly story of young Tibetans not being 100% on-board with HHDL. (The article’s title has them rejecting the MIddle Way.)

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