(Go here if you're looking for a post on the Beijing Olympic mascots.)
Original Post:
While putting together some information and pics for my own post asking concerned people to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympiad, I discovered that I am by no means the only one who isn't thrilled about the Beijing Olympics. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF, French for Reporters Without Borders) has, since 2001, been calling for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics because of restrictions on press freedom and other forms of oppression.
According to RSF, this was happening while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was voting in 2001 to give the 2008 Summer Olympics to Beijing:
According to RSF, this was happening while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was voting in 2001 to give the 2008 Summer Olympics to Beijing:
Chinese police received an order to step up their executions of delinquents and intensify repression against 'subversive Internet users.' IOC members, encouraged by their president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who personally supported China’s bid, paid no attention to the repeated calls against the Beijing bid.
RSF cites repression of Internet users, Tibetans, and Falungong members as further reason for their boycott.
Chinese authorities, satisfied by this decision, reinforced repression against Internet users, Tibetans, members of the Falungong spiritual movement, foreign scholars, the Muslim Uigur minority, democrats, foreign journalists and delinquents, all "in the name of the Chinese Olympics."The RSF page goes further:
In the early 1980s, a military-ruled Republic of Korea was granted the 1988 Olympics, and this spotlight is widely credited as pushing South Korea toward democratic elections in 1987. Perhaps this was what the IOC had in mind for Beijing, but the RSF in 2001 rejected this idea:In concrete terms, 35 cyber-dissidents are in jail, and more than 8,000 Internet cafés have been closed; dozens of websites and forums were censored in July. In western China, authorities in Xinjiang province, where the country’s Muslim minority lives, sentenced four Uigurs accused of "separatism" to death...
Meanwhile, two German journalists, who were investigating a case of contaminated blood in Henan province, were arrested and accused of "working illegally." Finally, police and judicial authorities received orders to continue the "Strike Hard" campaign against delinquency. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Chinese have already been executed this year, either shot in the neck or by lethal injection, and this is often done in public, in stadiums.
The idea that granting China the Olympics would incite the Chinese authorities to improve human rights has been swept away by recent events. We can look forward to seven years of repression, especially against Tibetans and Uigurs, and all those considered to be "subversive elements". The IOC has, in fact, invested the Chinese regime with a task it will carry out zealously: host safe Olympics. This means arrests of dissidents, social "cleansing", and censorship against "critical" elements, especially journalists.So the decision to have a boycott is, according to RSF, the only choice:
Unfortunately, the reactions from democratic governments - "we hope the Olympics will lead to improvements in human rights" - have no effect on the Chinese regime. History has shown that totalitarian regimes are more sensitive to a balance of power than to "constructive dialogue." A boycott therefore seems the only strategy to force Chinese authorities to respect human rights before 2008.The RSF draws parallels with past mistakes by the IOC:
The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich. In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics. The Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Egypt and so many others refused to countenance the Soviet regime. In 2008, the international sporting movement must refuse to tolerate one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships.I am sympathetic to this movement, but I think it will be more powerful if it comes from individual citizens, who can express their digust for Beijing's policies by stating, ahead of the Olympics, that they will refuse to watch the games and buy the products of Olympic sponsors for as long as they attach the Olympics to their products.
Unlike the situation with Korea leading up to the 1988 Olympics, most Chinese people have little willingness to demonstrate against their government in order to pressure them to change. But that doesn't mean that the Chinese government isn't willing to make some changes (i.e., put on end to some oppressive behaviors) to faciliate a better international image in the face of widespread criticism.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, it doesn't matter that much whether a significant number of Chinese people are behind this or not; it's the Chinese government that needs to be reached.
I just ran across this point by Rebecca MacKinnon (formerly of CNN), where she says, "I know firsthand that there are plenty of Chinese who want freedom of speech. But people who are running web services here as well as many bloggers are trying to be strategic about how they push the boundaries. And in being strategic, they're accepting censorship in order to do business."
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think such people would see the reason for the boycott and forego being "insulted." That's what I'd like to think; not so sure it's really the case.
I am against any international boycott movement although I respect individuals who choose not to go.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was living in China, I met many Chinese, especially young people, who were proud that China would be hosting the Olympics. They see the Olympics as a chance to welcome the world to come to China. These ordinary Chinese would see a boycott movement as evidence that the West wants to keep China down.
BTW, I read somewhere that there were more than 10,000 illegal demonstrations in China last year. The Chinese dare not demonstrate against high officials or the Communist Party, but they show their wrath in public at corrupt and incompetent local bureaucrats. One such demonstration occurred in my province after a street vendor was run over and killed by a police vehicle.
Perhaps it is easy for me to feel sympathy for the masses of Chinese who buy into the system because people in my own country were easily conned into supporting an unjust war.
Sonagi wrote:
ReplyDeleteI am against any international boycott movement although I respect individuals who choose not to go.
In fact, I agree with you. I think it might be dangerous for nations themselves, including the U.S. and EU nations, but especially Japan and South Korea, to officially boycott Beijing.
I am in support of individuals in a coordinated, public effort choosing to not watch and to not do business with Olympic sponsors.
In other words, hit Beijing in the pocketbook so that they know that there is a real price to pay for the horrific treatment they subject their people to.
While I was living in China, I met many Chinese, especially young people, who were proud that China would be hosting the Olympics.
The same is true of Koreans in the 1980s. But the Olympics-can-bring-change paradigm, for which Seoul is the poster child, simply does NOT work in China's case. China now is too different from Korea then. It's bigger, less inter-dependent on other nations, and does not have any substantial pretext of striving toward democracy.
But because it worked with Korea, people think it will work with China. But it won't, not if no one applies the pressure and threats. For Seoul, it was the threat that the Olympiad would be moved elsewhere. For Beijing, it probably has to come in the form of threats that people will turn off their TVs.
They see the Olympics as a chance to welcome the world to come to China. These ordinary Chinese would see a boycott movement as evidence that the West wants to keep China down.
I have no doubt. This is why it should be done at the private level, not the national level.
BTW, I read somewhere that there were more than 10,000 illegal demonstrations in China last year. The Chinese dare not demonstrate against high officials or the Communist Party, but they show their wrath in public at corrupt and incompetent local bureaucrats. One such demonstration occurred in my province after a street vendor was run over and killed by a police vehicle.
I have read about these demonstrations, too. But there are very few demonstrating against the abuses that the RSF have outlined (which I sardonically address here).
Perhaps it is easy for me to feel sympathy for the masses of Chinese who buy into the system because people in my own country were easily conned into supporting an unjust war.
That's a fair statement. The average Chinese is just digesting what the government and press tells them. To some extent, that's why I'm a bit more forgiving of the average person in Korea when it comes to anti-American or anti-Japanese sentiment or the average American when it came to enthusiasm to go to war against Iraq: they are swallowing (somewhat uncritically) what the press is telling them.
In Korea, especially, the press is out of control. It is the by far the main culprit (along with the erstwhile criminal teachers union). I don't give the public a free ride, though, because in countries like Korea (or Japan or the U.S.) people should know by now that they should be wary and watchful of what they read in the press.
Kushibo, you responded to every single point. I'm flattered.
ReplyDeleteMy point about Chinese views of the coming Olympics isn't that the Olympics will be a catalyst for change in China as it was in Korea. You're right that it won't. China is already scooping dissidents off the street long before the world's cameras arrive. My point is that there are international relations includes not only among governments, but also among peoples. If twenty nations boycotted, the Chinese wouldn't wake up; they'd just swallow the anti-Western line fed to them by the Chinese media. A boycott would backfire.
I don't believe in letting the masses off the hook, either. Democrats in Congress and the American people who supported the war share the blame for the mess in Iraq.
Hi:
ReplyDeleteI just launched a website and a youtube discussion group on the boycott of Beijing Olympics! You are not alone!
noolympics.blogspot.com
youtube.com/group/olympics2008
The Olympic movement is based on ideals. The Communist Chinese do not respect many of their own citizens. They do not have freedom of speech. When their politicians visit other countries they expect their host country to make invisible any anti Chinese feeling. The fur farming practices in China are cruel beyond belief. They farm body parts of recently deceased criminals. A boycott would ultimately embarrass the Chinese government. Remember the South African example. Sporting boycotts did help overthrow the repressive regime.
ReplyDelete