Can South Africa really risk incurring the wrath of China over the Dalai Lama? Sure, we should have taken a principled stand but even the United States treads softly on China on WTO issues because everybody needs to trade with them.

South Africa is particularly vulnerable to the China factor as the country buys huge amounts of commodities from us, without which we’d quite literally be up the creek. This said, though, I do feel our government has mishandled the PR on this.

Frankly, we look like right plonkers and it would have been far better for President Kgalema Motlanthe to just own up to the fact that China pressured the government to deny the Tibetan spiritual leader a visa than trotting out a wishy-washy “we don’t want him to divert attention” away from the peace indaba.

On top of that — and I’m not alone here — many feel that we’ve undermined our crediblity as an international leader in human rights, free speech and neutrality. (We are, after all, one of the most important members of the Non-Alligned Movement). That’s our USP (marketing speak meaning Unique Selling Point) — or it used to be.

Thought Leader has a very thoughtful piece by Azad Essa, a journalist and lecturer, about the Dalai Lama saga (click here to read) built around a trip he made once to the north Indian town Dharamsala, which is the Dalai Lama’s headquarters. With him on the trip was a Chinese sports journalist turned academic.

Essa pokes some very astute holes in the Dalai Lama myth. This rang a cord with me:

I had always felt that the Dalai Lama, as holy as he was, spent far too much time touring, lobbying and smiling with his palms together at liberal Westerners only too keen to maintain the regurgitated rhetoric, “the Chinese are bad”, to actually forward, pressure real changes to China’s stranglehold over their Tibetan quest.

And, on the latest fracas, he’s spot on. South Africa gave up the moral high ground long ago:

First, it was South Africa’s despicable decision to vote against a UN Security Council resolution aimed at sanctioning the military junta running Myanmar in 2007. Then it was Mbeki’s “no crisis in Zimbabwe” comment last year following the general elections which only just found some semblance of a resolution a month or so ago.

Quite right! This is a far bigger deal than the Dala Lama.

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