What'd the Olympics ever do to you?

I am going to springboard off of my fellow bloggers' last post. When the protests in Tibet first broke the news, I immediately blogged about how this was the type of news we had to look forward to as more people focused on China for the Olympics. Because as much as China would like to sweep everything untidy under the carpet and give the appearance of the perfect host, the world knows that their Communist government is neither benevolent nor merciful to those who voice an opinion contrary to their own. The violence in Tibet is merely a symptom. But I never argued that the Olympics shouldn't be happening there at all. On the contrary, if the media attention of the Olympic games also sheds some more light on the problems that China is so eager to ignore, than what better purpose could there be for the Olympic games? The Olympics are not at fault for the egregious human rights violations perpetuated by the Chinese government. Nor are they responsible for our nations' lack of actions in the effort to right these wrongs. No, the Olympics have never been anything more than a symbol of excellence and hope. And if any country is in need of that symbol, I would argue that China is. What would a boycott of that symbol show the world? That we are afraid to interfere in China? If only we could solve the world's problems with the Olympics! Imagine a fair competition between nations occurring on a sports field without the casualties and violence of the real world. There is little chance of that becoming reality. But what a strong symbolic message it would be for American athletes to attend the Beijing games, compete fairly, and win on China's soil. Better still would be if there were significant policy and diplomatic efforts on the part of our government to stand against China's rights violations afterwards. Perhaps that is too much to hope for. But in the meantime, why jeopardize the one symbolic event of hope and unity?

At the end of the day, I am a firm believer in people expressing their own thoughts and making up their own minds, and making those thoughts available to their democratically elected government. In that spirit, I encourage people to go to Congress.org and tell the US government your thoughts on the issue.
Click here if you think the US should boycott the games
Click here if you do NOT think the US should boycott the games

Fine China

The Cold War Sucked. Tension led to competition, competition led military posturing, which led to the threat of total nuclear annihilation.

I'm no fan of global thermal nuclear war. I watched War Games enough times as a kid to know that full on nuclear conflict is no good. Standing up to a communist empire had its down sides. But one thing I can respect is how we stood up to a global super power and finally won. We believed that the spread of global communism was going to feed the ultimate demise of the society. We would not let that stand, and the Cold War dominated the second half of the twentieth century.

Things have changed. China is an emerging super power. It's population and sheer land size make it a growing nation of emormous potential. Rather than locking that potential to it's own borders as the Russians did. China has opened its borders to trade, the Clinton administration decided to open the doors to China and ever since we have been buying cheap chinese goods. Our relationship with China continues to grow. We are growing increasingly reliant on Chinese goods, and we are watching as China grows as an emerging market for more expensive US made products.

While China has allowed for some capitalism, they remain a communist country, where there is no freedom of religion, speech or press. The people are not free to act as they please. We watch as China steps of Tibet, but even as we find ways to justify that, we stand by and let them squash the rights of it's own people.

Did we decide a decade ago that our principals were worth less than our economy? When in fact did we start making foriegn policy decisions based solely on the bottom line and forget about what makes this country great? We are a nation that speaks to backing democracys around the world, but when it comes to standing up to an economic interest we shrink. Our American colors may not run on the battle field of war, but on the battle field of commerce we always submit.

Protesting the Chinese Olympic Games is irrelevant. The only way to make a statement is to change our trade policy with China now. We must demand as we did of the Soviet Empire for real change before trade was possible.

The tooth paste may be too far out of the tube for our national policy now. But maybe it's time for the American consumer to limit their exposure to Chinese goods. Otherwise, in the long run...we might lose that Cold War.

Welcome to the Olympics!

As Tibetan protests turned violent, the US embassy is warning US citizens to stay away from Lhasa. Not many details are known, but it seems that the protest has lasted several days and is the largest since 1989. The frustration of the Tibetan people has escalated to burning shops and cars. Many protesters have been arrested and tear gas has been fired to disperse the crowd by the Chinese police. That was while wishing to keep the facade of a unified, peaceful nation for the Olympic games. But China's knee jerk reaction to protest is to smother it, and old habits die hard.

But without addressing the frustrations and concerns of the Tibetan people, these incidents will continue. Trying to muffle someone's shouting will only make them shout louder. And so it is that so many people were hurt and even died in their struggle with the Chinese police. And while the international community focuses on the appearance of improvement within China because of more prosperity for the middle class, these slight cracks in the facade are ignored. As long as our citizens don't see ugliness when they visit, then ugliness doesn't exist-despite the evidence to the contrary.

But as long as China continues to be an economic powerhouse and feed into our consumer frenzy, it seems our objections will never be too loud.

BBC World News Report
NY Times Report