Tea and sympathy with Obama, (how not to greet the Dalai Lama)

Dalai Lama escorted out the back door of White House

But where Barnett really scores is in his analysis of what the mainstream media missed:

Instead, administration officials described the meeting as a discussion in plain terms about the political situation in Tibet, thus sending a muscular message to Beijing, which, after all, remains firmly in charge of that territory. The press also downplayed the Dalai Lama's separate, extended meeting with the Secretary of State, although that could be taken by Beijing as a serious indication that the US views him as a national leader. This perhaps explains why the State Department referred to the Dalai Lama as "a religious and cultural leader," while the White House described him much more assertively as also "a spokesman for Tibetan rights."

But what may turn out to have been the most explosive element of ritual emerged only during a minor speech on a quite different topic by the Dalai Lama the following day, and was noticed by a sharp-eared AFP reporter and a Tibetan specialist from VOA: President Obama gave his visitor a gift, mentioned in no official statements--a specially bound volume containing copies of the five letters sent by Roosevelt and Truman directly to the young Dalai Lama when he ruled what was, in practice, an independent country. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to guess how that went down in Beijing.

The Chinese high command will have loved the single official photograph of the meeting, released by the White House he notes,

It was clear to anyone familiar with Buddhist, Asian or Chinese iconography, literate or not: it showed the President speaking to the Dalai Lama with his right hand raised, much as in the teaching mudra used to show the Buddha preaching to his disciples; while the Dalai Lama, like an attentive pupil, has turned to listen, so that his eyes cannot be seen.

Barnett is spot on, of course, and it yet another black mark against David Axelrod, the Obama image maker in chief, that he should have allowed this image alone to be released. What was the man thinking?

Barnett explains:

The most famous visual record of any encounter between the Tibetan pontiff and a worldly ruler is the mural in the Potala Palace that depicts the 5th Dalai Lama meeting the Qing Emperor Shunzhi in 1653. The Chinese authorities misread that powerful image in the past: they reproduced it in the 1980s in innumerable postcards and propaganda books because it shows the Emperor sitting on a slightly higher throne than his Tibetan visitor--until they discovered that all Tibetans and any Buddhist could see that the mural shows that the Dalai Lama has his right hand raised and is clearly teaching his imperial disciple. This time, it is the Emperor who is preaching

Then he turns to the cup of tea and points out that:
Even for the most secular Tibetans, the White House photograph is puzzling: it shows the President with his legs crossed, unthinkable casualness for a Chinese or Tibetan leader. And then there's the tea: the photograph shows a tea-cup and a cookie in front of the Dalai Lama, while the President has neither, an unmistakable sign that the President did not deign to drink with his visitor. In case anyone thinks that drinking tea together is not important, they need to reread their copy of the Dukula, the 5th Dalai Lama's autobiography, in which he describes his 1653 meeting. Immediately after noting that the Emperor's throne was slightly higher than his, he writes:

gsol ja byung ba'i dus sngon la 'thung gsungs kyang de 'dra mi 'gab zhus pas dus mnyam du 'thang gnang ba sogs mthong gzos shin tu che ba mdzad

When tea was served, the king asked me to drink first. I replied that this would not be proper. So he suggested we drink at the same time. He showed much respect.

Barnett's conclusion is that "the President's teaching mudra or the single cup of tea" wont bother the Dalai Lama one iota, but may raise concerns inside Tibet that he is preparing an unacceptable compromise.

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"It raises the central and as yet unanswered question, which is whether Obama's long-awaited initial foray into the Tibet issue will bring Beijing, masters of the land, any closer to settling with their Tibetan neighbors, masters of symbolic ritual.

In lip flops past White House garbage...