Tibet: An Olympic-size black eye for Beijing
This was not the way China
This was not the way China’s authoritarian government planned it, said Trudy Rubin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. “The Olympics were supposed to be China’s coming-out party on the world stage.” But with the games just five months away, the ruling cadre finds itself facing a “nightmare rather than a celebration.” For the last two weeks, the world has watched China mercilessly crack down on Tibetans rioting for their freedom in their capital of Lhasa. Armed security forces have killed as many as 100 and dragged off thousands to jail. In Greece this week, the lighting of the Olympic flame was disrupted by protesters, including a Tibetan who doused herself with red paint and prostrated herself in front of a torch runner. Beijing, though, is defiant, said Joshua Kurlantzick in The New Republic. Even before the current unrest, authorities were locking up dissidents, shutting down publications, and harassing ethnic minorities. It’s all part of a new, cynical government tactic: “using Olympic security as an excuse to crack down on its ‘enemies.’”
Is anyone really surprised? said Matthew Continetti in The Weekly Standard. When the International Olympic Committee picked Beijing in 2001, it did so in part in the naïve hope that “hosting the Olympics would mellow Beijing’s ruthlessness” and give Western democracies some leverage over its coercive policies. That hope is now officially dead, said Robert Kagan in The Washington Post. “China can go for great stretches these days looking like the model of a postmodern 21st-century power. But occasionally the mask slips and the other side of China is revealed.” For all its apparent modernity, China remains a backward dictatorship run by ruthless men whose primary concern is preserving their own power.
Beijing’s brazen thuggery is appalling, said The New York Times in an editorial. “Yet the response of the international community, and of the International Olympic Committee, has been tepid,” with the U.S. and other countries issuing “anemic statements urging restraint.” That’s not enough. Some foreign leaders are suggesting they won’t attend the opening ceremonies; President Bush should send a powerful signal by following suit. Whatever we do, let’s not organize a boycott, said British Olympic Association chairman Colin Moynihan in the London Times. As the U.S. learned in 1980, and the Eastern Bloc found in 1984, boycotts solve nothing and only yield huge medal wins for the host nation. Besides, the Olympics are a sporting event, not a forum for political ideologies.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“We shouldn’t be mixing sports and politics?” said Bernard-Henri Lévy in The New Republic. That’s rich. It’s the Chinese who are politicizing these games by “hoisting the Olympic flame over the bodies of assassinated men of peace and prayer.” Besides, said Anne Applebaum in Slate.com, the Olympics have almost never been apolitical. The 1936 Berlin Games spotlighted Nazi Germany’s military might. The U.S.-USSR rivalry was played out in the Cold War–era Games. As for the charge that boycotts don’t work, that’s hogwash. “The boycott of South African athletes from international competitions was probably the single most effective weapon the international community ever deployed against the apartheid state.”
Who needs a boycott? said the Chicago Tribune. Around the world, public outrage is building over Beijing’s domestic repression, its grip on Tibet, and its support of murderous regimes in Darfur and elsewhere. For China, these protests are “beyond inconvenient”; they are deeply humiliating. Come August, they’ll be inescapable. As Beijing seizes on the Olympics to hype what’s right with China, “it should remember that the Games will also draw attention to what’s wrong.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - April 27, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - natural gas, fundraising with Ted Cruz, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Aid to Ukraine: too little, too late?
Talking Point House of Representatives finally 'met the moment' but some say it came too late
By The Week UK Published
-
5 generously funny cartoons on the $60 billion foreign aid package
Cartoons Artists take on Republican opposition, aid to Ukraine, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published