Changing China
Giant on the move
Watching human rites
In the end they came of course. Remember all that talk about leaders boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games over China’s ties with the government of Sudan or its crackdown on Tibetan rioters?
Well, when the lavish ceremony got underway in the Bird’s Nest stadium on Friday night, some 80 leaders and royals were watching, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy who had threatened not to turn up.
The extravaganza muffled the voices of China’s critics. Three Americans staged a protest outside the stadium about an hour before it got underway, draping themselves in a Tibetan flag, but they were quickly bundled away by security forces and forgotten. Human Rights Watch put out a statement slamming China for its commercial and diplomatic ties to Myanmar’s junta on the 20th anniversary of the 8-8-88 democracy uprising that was crushed, drawing parallels with the 8-8-2008 date chosen by Beijing for the opening of the Games, but it was barely mentioned in international media reports.
There will undoubtedly be more protests and more slamming of China by rights groups between now and the closing ceremony, but the world’s attention has switched to sport.
Some foreign leaders — many of them under pressure back home to press China on its human rights record — will bring the issue up with their hosts. U.S. President George W. Bush fired a broadside just hours before he landed in Beijing, and Sarkozy handed two lists of jailed dissidents to China’s president and premier. But no one seriously expects it to change Beijing’s policies.
Andrew Small, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), argues in the institution’s blog that there have been few concessions from China on many of the rights issues that the West has harped on in the past year.
“The mystery is why we thought it would be otherwise,” he writes. “While the Chinese government still hears the same 1990s language coursing around western politicians’ speeches, it knows that human rights — at home or abroad — don’t make the A-list of the agenda any more in its dealings with the major powers.”
Politics and the Olympics over the years
WASHINGTON – The Olympics are supposed to be all about sports, not politics, right?
Wrong.
Although the Games began in 1896 with the hope that sporting events between nations could bring about a more peaceful world, they have not escaped politics.
Over the past 112 years, nations have boycotted the Games for political reasons, others have been denied entry by the International Olympic Committee and in 1972 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian insurgents.
Click here for a photo slideshow “Politics and the Olympics”, narrated by noted American sportswriter Frank Deford published by the U.S.-based Council of Foreign Relations.
“Protest begins at Home”
“This ‘Shut up and play’? That’s not okay. That’s not the Olympics.” So wrote Sports Illustrated’s Aditi Kinkhabwala, joining a rising chorus of sportswriters criticizing the pre-emptive repression of speech of Olympic athletes.It’s no doubt worthy of their ire.
The British Olympic Association told its teams in writing that they are forbidden to speak out “on any politically sensitive issues.” Other countries have done the same.
Canadian Olympic Committee President Dick Pound made crystal clear to the Canadian Olympians, “If it is so tough for you that you can’t bear not to say anything, then stay at home.” USA basketball and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “None of these athletes [has] a responsibility to be political. They have the responsibility to represent their country.” And International Olympic Committee head Jacques Rogge has also said that “political factors” need to be kept away from the games.
To read the rest of this article, see http://www.indypendent.org/2008/07/18/pr otest-begins-at-home/
Is China ready for the Olympics?
Hardly anyone questions whether Beijing will be ready to host the Olympics Games in August. China is determined to put on a good show, the thinking goes, so that is what the world will get.
No expense has been spared cleaning up the sky, removing traffic jams, building state-of-the-art stadia and teaching every Beijing taxi driver to speak some English.
Which is why the audience at a recent Olympics conference hosted by Hong Kong University was caught off guard by Yu Bu, deputy chief of the Beijing organising committee’s broadcasting coordination division.
“I don’t think China is ready for Beijing 2008 yet,” he said. “There is still so much work to be done.”
An Olympics veteran, Yu knows what “not ready” meant, having spotted mud in the main stadium in Athens, host of the 2004 Olympics. But he was not referring to that kind of problem.
“No one will have any doubt that Beijing’s stadia will be ready, but mentally will Beijing be ready?” Yu explained. “The hardware will be no problem. I am concerned about the software.”
Chinese often say that the country has world-class “hardware” -bridges and buildings, but needs to improve “software” – services and efficiency. Yu has pointed out a few weaknesses, including Beijing’s prickliness in the face of foreign criticism, its obsession with gold medals and its lack of media freedom.
I amnot anti-english or anti-US. Where can you get this impression? Ok. please stop the debate between us two.
The tropic of the debate is Tibet, China and the Games.
It is not French version, it is another article: an interview. If you would like to, please try to find an interview in the site of socio13.wordpress. The interview named “Tibet : Réponses sur l’Histoire, la religion, la classe des moines, les problèmes sociaux, la répression, le rôle des USA…” It is an interview with a French-speaking scientist (more or less) who worked 3 years in Tibet. After reading it, first, I didn’t entirely believe it, only considered it as her own view. However, when I see what is happening now and the article written by Engdahl, I believe this interview.
My logic is here: who has gains (qui gagne) from what is happening now? Tibetans? Not really. China, surely no. So should there be someboby gain something, n’est-ce pas? Who? Who is behind all these? With what political or/and economical purpose? Do you really believe all these happened in Tibet without organisation?
The towering hypocrisy, cant and disingenuousity of the the Western and other world leaders simply beggars belief.
However, China is still one the greatest places on earth that has very little palpable idea of what, and how important, human rights issues are.
Their extravagant playing to the gallery at the Olympics will and cannot ever make the world believe that it was nothing more than amazing window dressing.
China and it’s people are guilty of naivity or crass stupidity if they think for one moment their continuing abuse of human rights will go unnoticed.
Dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, China will have to concede to the demands of a 21st century world order where violence, intimidation, torture and abuse is generally considered as no way to treat anyone.
Let us all celebrate difference and herald in a new and permanent era for China, where a human rights charter is quickly adopted in real terms and for everyone.
Let China’s people be educated to expect and to participate in this new era, and therefore blossom into a gigantic land of the free.
It will happen!