If a few of Wall Street's huskiest institutions were "too big to fail," as the Obama bailout credo supposed, then President Obama has confirmed that "China is too big to be offended."
Obama has postponed a traditional presidential sit-down with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, by mutual agreement until after the president's November visit to mainland China.
It's no secret why. China's leaders take offense to any foreign leader's meeting with the Dalai Lama, who they consider a rogue and an obstructionist to China's efforts to suffocate Tibetans into submission with brute force.
Capitulation to China is disgusting.
It speaks volumes about China's communist bosses. That despite being the world's most successful tyrants, they freak out at the thought of a placid, exiled religious leader who has no army meeting on equal terms with world leaders. And China willingly disrupts diplomatic collegiality by threatening economic or military consequences if other nations don't heel to its thin-skinned nationalism.
If President Obama can't meet freely with whomever he wants, then the supposed leader of the Free World is showing worrisome weakness.
As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote Tuesday of the president, "He inspires lots of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the latter, though, that matters most in international affairs, where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama."
China's evolution as an international thug began after demonstrating a willingness to murder millions of his own citizens. Then Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong hurled hordes of troops into the Korean War to trigger one of the worst military retreats in history for United Nations and U.S. forces.
Thus impressed, the world in 1971 jettisoned Nationalist China Taiwan and declared Chairman Mao's mainland communists as the only true China.
Western businesses rushed to invest in this huge new market, willingly bowing to Beijing's oppressive rules.
And, yes, when President George W. Bush ran through the budget surplus, and needed billions of dollars to finance wars, China eagerly picked up the tab along with IOUs that China now uses to manipulate U.S. policies.
Appeasement is an ugly word in diplomacy. It suggests knuckling to tyrants. The word gained its starkest meaning when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler in hopes of averting war with Germany.
If the Dalai Lama can send China into tantrums, and Western leaders scramble to avoid offending Beijing, mainland communists will crave new ways for making other nations perform like trained seals whenever it expresses its displeasure.
