[Buddha-l] President Ma Ying-jeou decides to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan

[Weng-Fai Wong]

JKirkpatrick wrote:
> Amazing.......a while back he decided not to allow HHDL to visit
> because of you know who's objections. 
>   
Not so amazing. President Ma has been hit very very hard by the 
Taiwanese public and media for his personal as well as his government's 
poor handling of the typhoon aftermath. The invitation actually came 
from the opposition, who after getting HHDL's greenlight went to Ma and 
said "alright, we invited HHDL, he agreed, now your call - do you have 
the guts to defy the Communists?" Before the typhoon, there was 
festering unhappiness that he was "selling out" to China. Given Ma and 
his government's current ultralow approval ratings in Taiwan, he had no 
choice. Saying no would have given the opposition one more excuse to rub 
salt into his wounds. He has to worry less about China's reaction than 
his own weak domestic position for the moment.

In other words, it's all political. Now the question is when HHDL does 
go to Taiwan, will Ma meet him and if so, under what protocol.

W.F. Wong