A Black Eye for Beijing, Cameras Rolling
For once, I’m in complete agreement with the Bush administration including, amazingly, its choice of words: Boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics would be a “cop out.” It’s not that President Bush shouldn’t have better things to do than watch a fireworks show in the world’s biggest police state while hundreds of thousands of families are tossed out of homes and jobs back home and tens of thousands continue to lose lives, limbs and loved ones in the various countries he’s invaded. But it’s only polite for this subprime president to pay tribute to one of his chief creditors. And let’s face it: A Bush away from Washington is a less toxic Bush.
Figurehead outrage would ring false, anyway. The United States is by far China’s biggest trade partner. Germany and Great Britain are in China’s top 10. A few months ago French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao were photographed smiling and clinking champagne glasses like newlyweds over a $30 billion aircraft, telecommunication and nuclear technology deal. Germany’s Volkswagen is about to overtake General Motors as the biggest foreign-car manufacturer in China. Britain still acts as if Hong Kong is a suburb of London. Yet the French, British and German government chiefs want to salve their conscience by boycotting the Olympics’ opening ceremony. Thanks for reminding us that pretension is still Europe’s biggest export, the International Olympic Committee among them.
The committee knew, while it was being wined and bribed in Beijing in February 2001, that awarding the games to China was indefensible. The very week the committee was in Beijing, China was slamming human rights advocates in concentration camps to eliminate any chance that they might cross paths with committee members. Heaven forbid committee members should be reminded of China’s labor-camp archipelago, which political prisoners keep full, and that executions are so common (10,000 to 15,000 a year) as to make Texas’ and Florida’s death machines seem European in comparison. That’s before considering religious repression, environmental devastation and the forced relocation of millions; the widespread use of torture to obtain confessions and fight “deviant behavior”; and, of course, Tibet, that beleaguered country without a country alternately smashed up by Britain in the early 20th century, shoved around by a secret CIA war in the 1950s, and locked down by China since.
For all that, the Olympic committee overlooked Paris and Toronto and awarded the 2008 games to Beijing. Last week, Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge snared himself a gold for collaborationist hypocrisy by conceding that the summer games faced a “crisis” — not because of China’s tanks in Tibet, not because of China’s silencers, torturers and executioners, but because of those protesters interfering with the Olympic torch’s ridiculous prance around the world. The protesters themselves are forgetting that “the zillion dollar Olympics,” as The Economist dubbed them, aren’t about morals or trees or political ideal or even athletics. Actual competitions are like what’s left of newsy material in too many newspapers — decorative frames for the advertising.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a powerful and responsible way to give the Beijing games their due. China wants to use the games to pretend it’s an equal among civilized nations. Instead of playing into China’s wishes, NBC, which plunked $900 million to broadcast these games, should use its platform to give China a two-week version of “60 Minutes.” Not that the network would go for something like this. Its programming aims to deliver exploitable stupor to advertisers, not moral stimulants to lawmakers.
But imagine. Instead of wasting our time with those rosewater features about athletes’ personal survival tales, all of which sound the same, all of which would sound insultingly narcissistic in China’s context, tell us about the water and food rationing for the millions of farmers around Beijing so the games can lush on, tell us about Beijing’s once-great Chaobai River, dried-out by overuse and artificially refilled during the games with water from a plundered aquifer, tell us about the jailing of human rights leader Hu Jia, for “incitement to subvert state power,” tell us about the confiscation of Muslims’ passports in Xinjiang to prevent pilgrimages to Mecca, give us a few snapshots into the lives of some of the 4 million forced to relocate from areas around Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest hydroelectric power project.
By all means honor the competitions by showing them in full (rather than just their American shreds), but honor Chinese athletes, too, by honoring the truth of what they live with. And no, the Olympics aren’t just about the athletes. They never are. This year’s edition is about selling China. The best way to protest is not to buy in but to turn the Olympics’ table and give China the international black eye it deserves. Let viewers feel a fraction of discomfort in their plush chairs. It’s the least they can do, considering the plushless repressions 1.3 billion Chinese live with every day.
Tristam is a News-Journal editorial writer. Reach him at ptristam@att.net or through his personal Web site at www.pierretristam.com.
© 2008 News-Journal Corporation
“world’s biggest police state”? Well, that depends on how you measure it. If you use the percentage of its population in prison then it’s the US, hands down. You’re five times more likely to be in jail if you’re in American than if you’re Chinese. Another common sign of a genuine police state is its expenditure on arms sales, and the degree to which it promotes arms sales around the world. By that measure, it’s also the US. Note that the major countries that are leading this campaign against China (US, UK, France and Germany) are far and away the world’s major arms dealers (over 90% of them), and are responsible for the most violent wars currently happening in the world. Ask the people of Iraq and Afghanistan if the US really cares about freedom and civil rights. Taking away people’s passports so they can’t travel? What about the over a million people on the American ‘no fly’ list? They can’t travel freely either, and have absolutely no legal recourse to appeal, since there’s no rule of law involved. “Concentration camps”? Oh, please. The US now has a global gulag larger than that of Hitler and Stalin’s combined. Concentration camps all over the place, including more than I can count within the US itself. I could go on and on and on, but you get the point. Americans are no longer in a position to criticize anybody for human rights violations.
Wake up folks. The Democrats and Republicans are playing you for fools. This isn’t about Tibet or human rights. It’s about a few white nations who want to dominate the world and control everything. It’s about these few white warmongering nations planning a major war with Iran soon, and trying to discredit China (and Russia) so that there are no powerful nations with the stature to stand up to their barbaric and uncivilized actions.
I don’t especially like the Chinese government. But as an American I know just how violent and warmongering Americans are, and that they are planning many more wars. Someone has to stand up to them, or we are all in very serious trouble.
I also don’t admire the government in China but they are no different than our government here in the United States Of Everything. Our track record on treatment of our own ethnic minorities is well documented. If the Chinese really wanted to wipe out the Tibetans is could have done it long ago, just like we did to the North American native Indians.
Hoa binh
The response to this lame article by “Mikep” says it perfectly. Thanks.
Like Bubbasouth, I commend Mikep on an excellent comment. These geopolitical games are far more sophisticated than can or will be explained by US journalists in the corporate media.
So, if all of us agree that it is the Olympics, far more than China or any other “host” country that is the scam, what should be our response?
I would rather see vignettes on the sordid history of the Olympics that those sappy athlete profiles or a “China” expose (unless it included the realization that China has many codependent enablers among the world’s population including anyone who buys much of anything of a non-food nature from any big box retailer in the US).
While the bread runs out, you can still have circuses. China won the olympic bribery competition fair and square. The show must go on, as a glitzy facade, way past the time when it had any meaning. The media networks need some content, and advertising revenue. Meanwhile, the price of human life is at rock bottom, since world and national populations are far beyond the natural carrying capacity. Noisy complainers who rock the boat can and are so easily pushed overboard. That always leaves a bit more room for everyone else, so do not expect a war to be fought over any ones rights, although this might also free up a bit more space. Protest is put down or seen to be ignored, like noisy children.
The well resourced will always arrange affairs to try and keep it that way at the expense of the poor. The national governments are more concerned about preserving structures and power, and trying to match supply and demand in competition for diminishing resources. Their is is little real concern about who gets to be in charge, unless you are an Arab state and you want to manage your own oil wealth. Then the oil barons threaten to call in the military jackals to tear you apart. It matters not too much whether the Jackal states are US, China or Russia.
The withdrawal of any will result in another filling the hegemony vacuum. This is a major reason why many fear Iran may develop nuclear weapons. The oil jackals fear a slightly more independent bargaining position while negotiating (for want of a better word) to exploit the oil.
Tibet has very rich hydroelectric and geothermal electricity resources, which China wants and now has very favorable access. China still has a responsibility to ensure the welfare of all its peoples, which now include the Tibetans. Everyone has some rights to limited political and cultural and resource independence, and this should not be crushed in desperation to provide temporary relief for another nations overpopulated resource hungry millions. The US and its European and Australian floozies should remember that while they carry on bombing Iraq and Afghanistan. Think about it before crushing Iran. Remember Vietnam, and not just because everyone concerned lost.
Unlike the 1936 Olympics (which were awarded to Germany before Hitler came into power), the IOC knew full well what sort of regime was in power and should’ve known what sort of PR disaster this would be if the Chinese government carried on in their usual manner. Likewise, the Chinese should’ve had an idea of what was to come, but then seeing the world through a prism other than their own has never been something they have been known for (in fact, they have yet to let go of their ludicrous “Middle Kingdom” foundation myth). Thus, the 2008 Summer Olympics has become a case study of bad PR from conception to reaction to events. Don’t be surprised if a winning athlete or more displays a Tibetan flag during a medal ceremony in a modern redux of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in 1968.
Since this Olympics will probably be the last “big” one for a while, holding it in China is appropriate.
But on the plus side, it will likely hold off our bombing of Iran until September at least.
This ‘writer’ should go back to school.
According to the International Herald Tribune, April 15th, 2008, Amnesty International puts the number of executions last year at “At Least 470″
But this Anti-PRC article claims “10,000-15,000″ Executions a year and cites no source! Journalism?????
You get an F Pierre. Go re-write this. Do you have an editor?
It is garbage like this article that keeps American minds muddled.
I was just going to point out that 10,000-15,000 execution whopper, but Mikepeters got there first! Good job Mike!
I wonder if Pierre Tristam also calls for the broadcast of the Superbowl to include footage of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha, Walter Reed hospital, etc, etc. After all we wouldn’t want americans to be spared the truth about their country, right?
Yet another Bash China commentary in liberal drag? How many is commondreams going to publish??
China is the model the NWO types would like to implement in the “west”… A repressive police state which deals in unfettered capitalism. Watch for it. Coming soon to a country near you.
Try living in the PRC for a few years Mr. Tristam. You might realize how difficult it would be to try and govern a country of 1.3 +billion with dwindling resources and a very diverse society (both ethnically and class-based diversity). We tend to be able to point the finger at the repressive Chinese police state but forget the fact that Chinese civilization is the longest standing on the planet, and the current Communist leadership are only there because China was on the receiving end of two centuries of colonial violence and barbarity. If we don’t understand the complexities of another country/culture, let us keep our criticisms closer to home (starting with the Iraq invasion and genocide for instance).
He Ping