Should the Beijing olympics be held?
That’s a good question and one to which there’s no answer that’s clearly the right one.
Firstly, it’s very obvious that China is very far from the ideals of a free society that we take for granted in the western world.
To ensure that the games will go off well, the authorities are rounding up any dissidents that might cause even the slightest bit of trouble. The latest, Hu Jia, will be spending the next three and a half years in jail for “inciting subversion of state power”. What did he do to deserve that? Well, he posted five blog entries and was interviewed by two journalists. Isn’t it scary to think that you could be jailed just for writing a blog that criticised the government? That’s something that hundreds if not thousands of blogs do every day.
Should we be doing anything then that will surely be portrayed by the Chinese government as supporting their regime? Make no mistake about it, in the Chinese media it will be put over that foreign governments are supporting the regime even if it does take a lot of editing to prove it.
On the other hand, consider the amount of publicity that the regime in China is getting, pretty much all of it bad. Many people wouldn’t be aware of the issues in China today had it not been for the publicity that the games have generated.
In practical terms, I’m sure that it’ll all be ignored by the Chinese authorities. Well, perhaps not ignored: one wonders how many times they have tried to have the overseas protestors rounded up too. However, it’s unlikely to make any difference to what they do because in reality they just don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.
But they’re wrong. How many trips to China have already been cancelled? How many business details not made with the country? That’s what does make a difference.
Short term, I’m sure that we shouldn’t be supporting the regime yet long term the publicity that the event is generating can only be to the good. It’s a shame that little of that negative publicity will reach into the country (this will be yet another blog that they’ll be getting google.cn to ban, of course).
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Copyright © 2008 by Arnold Stewart. All rights reserved.