It takes an act of courage, and even a dab of heroism, these days for political leaders of the world today to meet with the exile Tibetan leader, the 1989 Nobel Peace laureate and acknowledged advocate of universal coexistence—His Holiness Dalai Lama. Meeting with him is, of course, not terribly a big deal. In most cases it is not much more than a harmless, how-do-you-do contact gesture. But it is the principle behind the gesture rather than the substance of the issues to be discussed which matters. At issue is the politics of morality in general and the promotion and protection of human rights, wherever gross and systematic violations are manifestly seen to occur, in particular. China under communist rule is the very antithesis of these ennobling human values.

While economic liberalisation and opening up and the signing of the basic international rights covenants may rightly be seen as positive developments in China, no one can deny the fact that the human rights situation there under communist rule continues to be nothing short of horrendous, deserving of all the indignant condemnation that human language could muster. But the reality today is that while the Chinese communists get all the pats on the back for their economic deeds and exaggerated appreciation for what are after all only empty-word rights initiatives, nothing concrete is being done to prod them to the right human rights path. In fact, more than just failing to take concrete steps to usher human rights in China, and its colonial territories, political leaders of the world have made themselves willing accomplices of the communist regime’s rights violations.

Meeting with the Dalai Lama, no matter how many times and how very warmly, would not free Tibet and dismember China as claimed by the Communist regime. This is quite obvious, and all the more because of the Tibetan leader's commitment to his repeatedly pronounced "Middle Way" approach. Nor will meetings deal such vicious setbacks to the communist regime as to throw it off its political pedestal of rights denials. Refusing to meet with the Dalai Lama therefore amounts to denial of even small mercies to the politically downtrodden humanity in the vast communist Chinese corners of this globe.

It was in this background that the defiant meeting Israel's parliamentary speaker, Mr Avraham Burg, had with the Dalai Lama deserved all praise. Mr Burg refused a specific Chinese government request to cancel his invitation to the Dalai Lama to visit the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and to a one-on-one meeting with him. He rightly put his determination to meet with the Tibetan leader in context, arguing, in effect, that having good trade relationship with China was not what Sino-Israeli relationship was or should be all about; that Israel had to adhere to other no less important, humanistically inspired values that people like His Holiness the Dalai Lama represented. Though the government of Israel displayed the usual pusillanimity of others fearful of offending China, its education minister, Yossi Sarid, made a refreshing departure by meeting with him and publicly praising him as "the world's number one educator against violence." This would surely have come as a dig on China which maintains its political control and legitimacy within the country and geopolitical posture on its capacity for brute military violence.

Though it was speculated, in fact even claimed in a section of the press, that visiting Chinese parliamentary head, Mr Li Peng, had cancelled his scheduled meeting with Mr Burg for according too warm a welcome for the Dalai Lama, this turned out to be untrue. Mr Li himself said that the meeting would take place as scheduled, although a couple of ceremonial events at the parliament, including a dinner, were canceled. And Mr Li, the second most powerful figure in China, is supposed to represent the hardline faction of the communist leadership.

The month before, in October, the Tibetan leader was received by the Prime Ministers of the Netherlands and Italy and also by the Pope at the Vatican. Mr Burg’s more defiant manner of meeting with the Dalai Lama, followed by his scheduled meeting with the Chinese leader, one hopes, has opened the way for removing the stigma of political untouchability that too often characterises the Dalai Lama's visits to major western countries.

Tibetans, like the Chinese pro-democracy activists, do not expect the West to take on the communists and win them their deprived rights and freedoms. Besides, liberalisation and opening up has, for the moment, greatly reinforced the communists' monopoly on political power in China. It has opened vast avenues for the Chinese people to go after making money, rather than speculating on how they would prefer to be governed. It has also made the West amenable to Chinese pressure tactics, with the communists' propensity to condition economic relations to the former's restraint on commenting on its human rights records. Nevertheless, peoples struggling under the communist regime do expect the West to exert all the moral and diplomatic pressures it can on it and certainly not succumb to its habitual threats against making even such minuscule human rights gestures as a mere meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Chinese leaders have a rather simplistic perception that its position of influence on the world stage depends on economic and military strengths they can bring on their country and the stability that comes from them. But the clinching issue really is moral legitimacy. So long as China continues to view its capacity to prevent other countries from criticising its indefensible human rights records as accomplishment, it will only be tolerated, but not respected.