[Cross posted, of course.]
I'm not the biggest watcher in the country of either the summer or winter Olympics, but this year, I will not watch one damned second of the Games. Why? Because though the Olympics are supposed to be a symbol of cooperation and open spirit, China has actually become more repressive in the lead up to the opening ceremony.
Whatever possessed the idiots on the selection committee anyway? I could have told them this was the worst idea back when they chose China. Hey, where are the next Olympics going to be? North Korea?
China hasn't changed, I don't care how many upstart millionaires there are there now. The government is still repressive (Tibet, anyone?) and is paranoid-delusional, they think a few thousand monks are dangerous to their rule. The Chinese are not a free people. They do not have free access to information, they are not free to vote as they will, or move as they will, or determine a lot about their lives. So what is so Olympic in spirit about China? Nothing, absolutely nothing, and anyone who watches the Olympics this year needs to be a little ashamed, for in some small fashion enabling this regime to do this to their own people. Let's see this Olympics have the worst viewership in history – boycott watching any part of this once-august tradition, now sullied by the host country which may have moved mountains, but not its politics, to obtain the honor.
I refuse to take part. Will you?
But as you point out, it’s not that big of a sacrifice for me.
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p>One thing I’d like to add to the discussion, and I don’t have time right now to write a thoughtful researched comment about it, is to ask what would the Dalai Lama suggest?
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p>Off the top of my head, I don’t know. For those unaware, the Dalai Lama was forced into exile when the Chinese military asserted control over Tibet in the 50s and, to this day, China still uses brute force to abuse and execute Tibetan dissidents. The Lama is the leader of the Tibet government in exile, which obviously opposes the Chinese brutality and oppression, and he is strongly espoused to non-violent, peaceful resistance and conflict resolution.
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p>I saw a documentary on PBS over the weekend called “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama”; in it, the Dalai Lama stated that he favored engagement and diplomacy with China, not isolation. I’m not versed enough in the Dalai Lama’s thought to expand on what, exactly, that entails and I can’t extrapolate how he would recommend people in America concerned about Tibet handle the Beijing Olympics, but I think it’s worth looking into and considering his philosophy on the matter as we discuss an Olympic boycott.
which was about a month ago, he was not suggesting boycotts.
Boycott your own thing. Give up something YOU value to make a point. Alternatively, check with someone who spent half his or her life to go to the Olympics only to be told, nope sorry, our boycott costs us nothing but you should pay.
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p>Ask Bill Rogers how he feels.
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p>Rogers probably ran 100 to 150 miles every week for years readying for the Marathon, but couldn’t go to Moscow ’80 because Jimmy Carter thought not allowing US athletes to visit Russian had something to do with Russian troops in Afganizstan.
…international athletes also have to know that they’re not performing in a vacuum. the big-money sponsors should be enough of a dope slap for that. but either way, the USA isn’t going to officially boycott the olympics. so if individuals choose not to turn on the tellie, it’s not going to prevent any athlete from competing, so your tear-jerker about rogers really has no place in this debate.
who will never forgive Carter for that futile display of his own extreme impotence.
It was okay to drop napalm on Vietnamese villagers to fight the Cold War but boycotting the Olympics was too much for you and your runner friends to handle. I swear it’s tough to keep up with the conservative philosophies on regime change.
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p>Don’t swear. But rather, tie together your random notions of napalm in Vietnam; Russian in Afganistan; Athletes in the Olympics, and Liberals being ask to turn off their China Olympic TV channel.
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p>For extra credit, mention gay marriage, tax cuts for the rich and the 2nd amendment.
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p>Use the word Progrssive liberally.
In the opinion of Gary?
We should engage in pointless, shrill and arbitrary protests which serve to degrade relations such that the country which is the focus of the protest retaliates. In the meantime, the condition of the people, whose conditions you seek to improve, is unchanged or made worse.
but not for proving that boycotts are a bad way to deal with repressive regimes. I don’t think you proved it with your link- nor have I proven that they are indeed effective. But props for the “shrill,” regardless.
remembered to use “knee-jerk.”
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p>Half a point off.
say anything of substance in their posts. Two points off and detention after school for disrupting class time.
You want to undermine a repressive regime? Give them no choice but to keep opening up to the rest of the world. It’s happening slowly over there and will only continue as the Chinese people get more of a feel for what western civilization feels like and refuse to stand for anything less.
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p>Heck, the Olympics may end up a catalyst for more rapid change…
KFC is huge too. Domino’s, Subway, Taco Bell, even Dairy Queen all have a presence. Starbucks is everyone. There’s even a Starbucks in the Forbidden City.
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p>We can clearly see the great blossoming of Democracy the this infusion of American Fast Food has brought. Why we just need a thousand more restaurants and another boatload of pirated American movies and we’ll have free and fair multi-party elections in another six to eight months!
how capitalism is so frequently confused with representative democracy?
that Eury did a disservice with the “Send in McDonalds” title as it masked what was a far more constructive (and correct) post. We do have to keep working to open up China (both its government and its citizens) to more ideas, opportunities and yes jobs. There is no better “remedy” than constant and consistent engagement and exposure to the wider world. (we could do with some more of that here as well)
China is doing an amazing job disproving the once-prevalent notion that free markets lead to free people. Mind, this is possible largely due to the government’s smart and ruthless use of nationalism as a way to keep people together and in line much more than socialism.
As for the MacDonaldses, I ate at one in Beijing – once. I had no idea a meat patty could be made that thin.
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p>I do not think there is any way of “pressuring” the CCP to do anything it doesn’t want to do, so long as it manufactures so much of our consumer-product stream, and so long as it maintains its access to raw materials. They are very sensitive to slights, but they honestly do not care that much about our opinion of their system.
I’ve always enjoyed watching the Olympic games. And I see no point in petulantly denying myself the enjoyment of appreciating some of the world’s premier athletic performances just because I disagree with the governance of the country in which they are being held.
Olympic boycotts are a tricky issue, because you want to make a statement without hurting athletes who toil in obscurity for 3.5 years, only to suddenly be told their nation’s hopes ride with them. On the other hand, awarding the Games to Beijing was a naked money grab by the kleptocrats running the IOC.
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p>Personally, I’ll be recording much of it, and fast forwarding through the ads (annoying that NBC will be slicing away much of the good stuff with their abuse of tape delay). However, it certainly doesn’t endear Kodak, Lenovo, Coke, Visa, and others that they’re taking part in this legitimation of one of the most hidebound regimes in the world.
are based on the belief that the situation in China has remained static for years, however that’s just not the case.
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p>Of course, one would be wrong to say that Chinese citizens enjoy the freedoms we and many others around the world enjoy (speech, assembly, worship etc.) but things are improving. Adopting an isolationist attitude toward China in today’s ever-complex and connected international system is the absolute wrong way to go. While your suggestion of television boycotting is at the individual level, the intent behind it embodies a flawed way of thinking about “dealing” with China.
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p>China will not look like or, more importantly, act like a democratic, representative and free nation any time soon. China’s political system will always retain certain “Chinese characteristics” that will set it apart from most “Western” countries. That doesn’t mean that progress isn’t occurring right now, albeit slowly, and that moving toward more freedoms for its citizens can’t be induced and moved toward in the future. But this will be an extremely long process.
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p>In the meantime, alienating China from the world, putting it on the defensive and expelling it from international events such as the Olympics (including barring it from hosting the event) would do nothing but harm. There are thousands of Chinese citizens slowly chipping away at the outdated, authoritarian and inhumane policies that characterize much of the Chinese government. But change is happening, and most importantly it is happening on the inside. Boycotts and alienation would serve only to inflame an already intense sense of nationalism within the country and severely hamper those “progressives” working for change.
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p>Nobody is asking to excuse China’s record on human rights. What I’m simply saying is that boycotting will do absolutely nothing, could cause more harm than good if practiced on a grander scale and represents a flawed way of viewing China’s history, present and future.
Mostly in Shanghai, but I also spent time in Wuhan, Beijing, Chongqing, and along the Yangtze River. I don’t speak any Chinese language save a few words, so everything I “know” I know from observation over a three month span.
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p>That’s flat wrong. You can argue that it hasn’t changed enough in areas of your concern, but China has changed quite a bit, both for good and for bad. China is nothing right now if it isn’t change.
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p>I don’t disagree with this.
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p>How free is free? It’s all relative — we’ve got our government spying on us too. Most of the billion people in China suffer far more from the shackles of poverty than from any specific repressive policy regarding a lack of civil rights.
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p>Last year while in China, I could access BMG and dkos as well as cnn.com. I couldn’t access flickr or blogspot. I could access whitehouse.gov, and I could ssh and sftp to servers in the USA and Europe. I also used skype and IM regularly. So, while there isn’t full freedom of the press within China to be sure, the Great Chinese Firewall is chock full of holes, and everybody knows it. Most people access the Internet from cafes, which are plentiful and dirt cheap.
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p>I wasn’t able to know from observation.
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p>This is true. I knew an “illegal immigrant” from central China who moved to Shanghai illegally to make some cash to send back to his poor farming parents.
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p>For most, this is also true — but I believe it’s a function of poverty more than civil rights. I’m not suggesting that civil rights aren’t important, but the amount of poverty in Shanghai and Beijing is just jaw dropping. When you sleep outside and bathe in a bucket, when your wages consist of three bowls of rice, one with a vegetable, and less than $1 a day, when you only own the clothes on your back, as long as the government doesn’t harass you directly it doesn’t matter much what they say you can and can’t do — you can’t do much of anything anyway.
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p>You mean like work really hard at cleaning up the air? It may not last, but it might. Like massively expanding the subway, allowing more people access to cheap movement throughout the city, including access to employment and markets? Those improvements will last. The athletic infrastructure will last, and while it won’t serve very many people [cue joke: how many Chinamen can you fit in an Olympic sized swimming pool], those who do use those facilities will gain. Of course, there’ll be an infusion of foreign cash, which means poor people will make more money selling everything from dumplings to postcards.
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p>The Olympics are doing nothing to “enable” China. America’s appetite for cheap goods is what has prevented a Soviet Union style collapse in China, not a few weeks of athletes playing sports people won’t pay to see otherwise.
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p>And in the mean time, no matter how you slice it, this will provide access for journalists. Free and unlimited? Nope. But I guarantee you that some will “slip through the cracks” and all will observe the strange dichotomies of China — and will report on it.
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p>I don’t like the Olympics, but I do believe that the Olympics in China are good for the people of China. They’ve gotten infrastructure improvements, they’ll get a little bit of cash, and the rest of the world will get a much better sense of what China is and what it isn’t. Me, I think a boycott of products Made in China is far more important than boycotting games in China.
Or was I just asleep at the wheel?
although I looked back and I didn’t see many posts about it. The time which I posted tended to be early morning or late at night EST — because I was sleeping during EST day.
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p>I did see this post referencing the Great Firewall of China though. This post mentioned text messaging in China.
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p>I don’t think I made a big deal out of it though. Looking back on it, I’m glad I went because it’s allowed me to laugh at loud about lots of assertions made by people who’ve never even been there, no less lived there.
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p>China’s government has far more centralized power than the US government, which means they’re capable of creating much greater harm and much greater good. The Chinese government does plenty of both.
The best recent memoir on China during this period of change is China Road by Rob Gifford. I highly recommend it as an informative yet engaging read.
but I don’t know how much of that foreign cash is going to make it into the local economy. Apparently, the Chinese government has made restrictions on visitor visas much more stringent, supposedly because of terror threats. They now require applicants to supply a letter of invitation, a complete itinerary, have a round-trip ticket, etc. The hotels in Beijing are bemoaning their empty rooms. Those restrictions, by the way, are oddly similar to the ones the US has been applying to Chinese applicants for US visas for years. I don’t know if they are also applying the arbitrary and capricious rejections and non-refundable application fees that the US Embassy features.
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p>Some links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06…
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p>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
A government rife with corruption, known for shoddy and unsafe products. A country that tramples human rights. A country known to invade foreign lands.
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p>Who do they think they are — the United States?
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p>Maybe we should be more concerned with cleaning our own house.