China’s Olympics; what would JC do?

In 2000, the Olympic Committee, rightly or wrongly, awarded China the 2008 Olympic games. The Clinton Administration applauded the decision as a path to improved openness with the oppressive communist government – an oppressive government that has resisted openness for decades. No, it wasn’t the Clinton’s fault, it was the entire West’s fault for continuing to reach out to civil rights violators – China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and so on.

Every time someone heads from the West to confront the Chinese on their human rights record, the government throws a bunch of activists in prison just to show the West how little respect they have for our idea of human rights. They make small concessions (today Media Spy reports that the Chinese can now watch BBC – big whoop) and the liberal statecraft adherents applaud loudly. Ignoring completely the horrors that occur almost simultaneously – like the missing Monks in Tibet as reported by Wind Rose Hotel, or the stepped up “patriotic reeducation” of Monks reported by the Vodka Pundit.

Protests erupted in Olympia, Greece yesterday to force the Olympic Committee to reconsider their decision – a little late. France’s President Sarkozy hinted at a boycott of the Olympics, according to the Liberal Blogger – a little late. Realizing that they might have a public relations nightmare looming, the Chinese went so far as to offer troops to Australia to suppress any protests there (according to my buddy Mike at Lamplighter who turned me on to this whole post) – a little late.

I’m sure Australia sees the protest problem as reason enough to allow armed foreign troops on their soil – not. China sees the solution to the PR problem as more applied force. They’ve controlled their own population for decades with force and starvation so why not offer the benefit of their experience to Australia, right?

 Lamplighter‘s Mike, in a second post, condones an Olympic boycott that brings me to the title of this post – the JC I’m talking about is Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter organized a weak boycott against the Soviet Union when they hosted the Olympics in 1980, the year after they invaded Afghanistan. The boycott worked so well that the Soviet Union immediately withdrew from Afghanistan – eight years later.

The Soviet Union was so intimidated that they boycotted our own Olympic hosting in 1984 and their boycott didn’t stop the United States from deploying medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe either.

I oppose a boycott of China’s games as ineffectual – just like I thought Jimmy Carter’s boycott would be ineffectual. I’m no sports fan, and I won’t watch not a moment of the Olympics, but using the Olympics as a political tool is just as ridiculous as the hacks who told us that holding the Olympics in China would improve human rights there. If anyone learns anythin, it’ll be those athletes and fans who go to China and see how repressive the government is for themselves. If anything, a boycott would make the western world look like impotent buffoons – like Jimmy Carter made us look in 1980.

Category: Foreign Policy