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McCain's Day of Contrasts
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By contrast, McCain said, Obama chose a politically popular position that he said would have forced U.S. troops to "retreat under fire."
John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, told reporters that McCain had requested the meeting with the Dalai Lama months ago. Denunciation of China's handling of Tibet is one area of agreement among the political candidates, and Ackerly said the Dalai Lama had also spoken with Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"And the Dalai Lama doesn't talk on the phone very often," Ackerly said.
The Dalai Lama, who has been in exile nearly 60 years, wants the Chinese government to grant autonomy to Tibet.
McCain called on China to renew talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama and to release Tibetan prisoners arrested after anti-Beijing riots broke out March 14 in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.
The United States wants good relations with China, McCain said, "but it does no service to the Chinese government and certainly no service to the people of China for the United States and other democracies to pretend that the suppression of human rights in China does not concern us."
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