No longer isolated for Tiananmen crackdown, China pressures others to shun critics like Dalai Lama

Earlier this month, cheering crowds and packed venues greeted the Dalai Lama when he visited Norway, just as they had when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The crowds returned on his 10 other visits. But something was different in May.

Internationally regarded as Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama is considered by Beijing to be a violent separatist. For the first time, the Norwegian government decided that its officials would not meet the 78-year-old.

Politics informed the snub. Norwegian officials said they hoped to restore relations with China that have been strained since imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo received the peace prize in 2010.

"We need to focus on our relationship with China," Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende told reporters. "Should the Norwegian government meet the Dalai Lama it could become difficult to normalise our relationship with China."

That China can now influence a European government's decisions shows how far the pendulum has swung in international politics since soldiers gunned down protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Condemned and shunned for years, China has emerged as a global power, able to flex its diplomatic muscle to get what it wants.

After China brutally stopped pro-democracy demonstrations, many Western countries imposed economic sanctions and avoided diplomatic exchanges with the nation. Within a month after the violence on June 4, each of the G7 countries - then the world's most powerful and wealthiest - suspended all high-level exchanges with China. International financial institutions such as the World Bank postponed or deferred consideration of loans to China.

"This was the nadir of China's diplomacy since its founding," said Wu Jianmin, a veteran diplomat and a member of a foreign policy advisory committee to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.