China warns U.S. about the Dalai Lama

No matter how many advancements China makes, there is still something primitively insecure about its government. China can host spectacular Olympics and build high-speed-rail trains, yet this is a country that has the arrogance to warn the United States not to meet with a Tibetan monk.

I understand China holds a lot of our debt and has territorial concerns in its part of the world, but that doesn't mean we have to quiver at its every warning. We could make a few threats of our own -- like we could stop importing China's poisonous pet foods and defective drywall. In many ways, we've built up China's economy while imperiling our own.

Chinese officials don't want President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. Among other things, they charge that a meeting between Obama and the spiritual leader could harm America's economic recovery.

This paranoia about the Dalai Lama makes China, a country with the largest military on the planet and a robust economy, look silly and immature. The threats related to our economy are manipulative at best. Read about it here.

Coming from a country that produces the world's toxic junk, still slaughters endangered animals because of a cultural belief in the healing powers of parts of those animals and provides weapons to rogue nations ... well, I have trouble respecting demands from its officials. It seems the more things change with China the more they stay the same.

I read the Dalai Lama's book, The Art of Happiness, several years ago. The thrust of his message was that unhappiness is rooted in the desire for things. Those things can be material objects like cars and jewelry. They can also be intangibles like control and power. Maybe China's political leaders should read it.