Despite strong opposition from the Chinese government, Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama today at the White House. NYT:

The Chinese government considers the Tibetan spiritual leader a separatist, and bans open displays of his photograph in Tibet. In an article published in November, the top Communist Party official in Tibet signaled how China was planning to clamp down on the Dalai Lama's ability to get his message out.

"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda," Chen Quanguo, the party chief in Tibet, wrote in the party journal Qiushi. He said the government would confiscate illegal satellite dishes, heighten monitoring of online content and take other measures to prevent the dissemination of the Dalai Lama's message in areas with Tibetan populations so that "the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard."