It is utterly unbelievable how far governments are willing to go to accomodate the authoritarians in charge of China:

The South African government has admitted it decided to bar the Dalai Lama from attending a peace conference with Nobel peace laureates to avoid undermining relations with China.A cabinet statement released late Wednesday said that while South Africa had not acted on a specific demand from Beijing, it was not prepared to “jeopardise” ties nor allow itself to be used as a political platform in the run-up to the hosting of next year’s football World Cup.

“A choice was made in this particular case that our interests will be better served if we give priority to making sure that we don’t jeopardise our bilateral relations with China in this particular case,” government spokesman Themba Maseko said in the statement. (more…)