Like nearly everything named a ‘scandal’, ‘affair’ or given the suffix ‘gate’, almost nobody now remembers the Dalai Lama affair. But back in 2012, flush with recently acquired power and optimism, David Cameron and a man called Nick Clegg went to see the Dalai Lama while he was on a trip to London.
Whether Cameron and Clegg knew what they were getting into wasn’t clear. The pair had a short meeting with the Lama at St Paul’s Cathedral — or at least in one of those bland conference ante-rooms English cathedrals constructed in the last century to atone for the splendours next door. Looking like a couple of travelling salesmen trying to flog the Dalai Lama a timeshare, Cameron and Clegg had the meeting and moved on.
Not so Beijing. The British ambassador was immediately called in and given the traditional post-Lama telling off. In the wake of the meeting the Chinese Communist party announced relations with Britain had been damaged. Sure enough, Chinese investment into the UK went on hold. A trip to the UK by Chairman Wu Bangguo was called off. And the CCP talked about how ‘hurt’ the Chinese people had been by the meeting.
You can do that sort of thing if you are a dictatorship: pretend to act as the mouthpiece of more than a billion people, not one of whom can hold you to account. But Cameron got understandably spooked and — proving himself years ahead of the game — announced plans to socially distance himself from the Dalai Lama. Indeed soon he was declaring that he saw no need ever to meet him again. The British government issued an apology to the Chinese authorities for all the offence caused and normal trade relations were eventually restored.
It was the account of the first meeting between British and Chinese officials after this affair that was so memorable.
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