China and the Olympics

Great Debates
61

Happy Scrappy, remind me to never confront you in a dark alley. You just impressive.
Boycotting the Olympic Games on an official level strikes me as pointless at best. Let the Chinese Commies show off! If history is any clue, authoritarians have a mental block that precludes them from understanding that their propaganda doesn’t play so well outside of their captive audience…I mean, only ONE US stop, and they choose San Francisco?! Perhaps the wizards in charge of the PRC thought that nobody there had less than an entirely positive opinion? And the athletes and their fans get to have a good time. Why would I begrudge that?
That said - a lot of people have SERIOUS gripes with the Chinese gummit, and this is a rare, possibly unique, opportunity to get their grievances heard outside of the regular crowd that pays attention to such matters. Short of assault, which has apparently occured and I do not endorse, these people SHOULD take advantage of the situation. Making noise AT the Games will be well-nigh impossible, so they’re going after the part where they CAN get noticed. No problems on my end.

I couldn’t boycott the Olympics if I tried. They want money, and I got none, and I don’t watch much TV in any case.

62

Oh please, not this bullshit argument again. I’m boycotting Olympics, not everything having any connotation with Chinese.

63

nitpick
Air quality in London ain’t all that bad, especially compared to Athens and Beijing. And by 2012 a bunch of programmes will have kicked in reducing emissions even more.
/nitpick

I won’t be watching, but that’s just cause I don’t like the summer Olympics all that much; I much prefer winter sports for watching. I might watch the rowing, though, as I just took up the sport.

Put me in the camp calling the Olympics non-political is just silly. But also just as silly is the automatic assumption that China is terrorizing and destroying Tibet. Admittedly, they’ve got a history of civil rights abuses and problems with economy (i.e. money) being the driving reason for every decision, but I don’t think the Tibet issue is quite so clear-cut.

64

Ah, because boycotting the Olympics is a more effective strategy than severing your economic ties with the country?

Henry David Thoreau had it all wrong. If he really wanted to effectively protest the Mexican/American War he should have boycotted an international sports event instead of putting his money where his mouth was!

65

Meh. I have no problem with groups using the Olympics as a stage for non-violent protests, but it seems a particularly ineffective tool for any government to use.

Me, I’d boycott the Olympics by not watching but that would be the same as every time! I can find easier ways to watch commercials for the multi-nationals.

66

/irony mode on
You are right! And I have even better idea. All boycotters should go to Tibet and join anti-chinese guerilla, that’ll be even more effective!
/irony mode off

Seriously, boycotting Beijing Olympics isn’t about causing economical collapse of China government. And even if that could do that, how exactly would that help Tibet? Your argument is pure strawman. Boycott is about publicity. Every press note about protests in cities housing olympic torch relay means more awareness of Tibet cause in general public. And more awareness means more funding for organizations helping tibetans. Politicians tend to make gestures that appeal to their voters, and eventually Chinese realize that it’s better for their political (and hence also economical) relations to not crush Tibet so hard.

67

That is the main issue. The narrative is that China is finally accepted, despite the human rights abuses, and so there is no need for the government to change anything. If Bush went and publicly called for China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama, that would be great, but that is not going to happen.

Sure, but it is very marginal, and not enough to make a difference.

Security. After Munich no country can afford to have random people wandering around the athletes. They announced this morning that they broke up a bombing plot. This isn’t a slam at the Chinese, by the way. They have every right to be worried.

68

My fundamental premise is that what will change things in China is internal change demanded by the middle class. If that premise is true, the key aspects are the economic and cultural factors motivating those people.

I’m talking about the internal narrative. Whereas for the last few years in the US it has been something like, “9/11 changed everything, so give us more power,” in China it has been “the West hates us, so give us more power” for the last century. It is a powerful narrative, and in my opinion, these things matter. We can’t shape our policy on how China spins it, but I think it is worth considering when it comes to symbolic protest.

Also, the Olympics themselves are a cause for nationalism in China. If China replaces an anti-imperialist nationalism with different kinds, that weakens the call for a strong, democracy-free state.

I don’t think the global narrative much matters. Everyone knows China is a human rights violator. Whoop-dee-doo. No one is fooled by the Olympics who wouldn’t still be fooled after a widespread boycott.

Ah. You’re talking about people who are not ticket-holders, yes?

69

BBC just announced that Japan won’t allow the Chinese security personnel – the ones the head of the London Olympic Committee called “thugs” – in for their portion of the relay. They mentioned Japan was joining Australia in this regard, although I had not heard about Australia banning them before. Why DO the Chinese have to send their security out to protect the runners anyway?

70

Because every country that has had the tourch run has unsuccessfully protected the event? The olympics have become very political in this respect. I don’t undestand why approaching protestors aren’t maced at the very minimum. I fully support the moon-babies lining the route with signs of protest but the second any of them approach a torch bearer they should be beaten down. Free speech ends when it interferes with other people’s rights.

71

Well, the Chinese personnel were right there and didn’t seem to do any better than the local cops.

72

Of course that argument won’t convince you.

I don’t see how you could NOT relate to someone training for decades, having an Ivy League degree yet selling lumber at Home Depot, putting relationships and careers on hold because of a desire to be the best at what you do, the desire to represent your country, the desire to grow your sport, the desire just to COMPETE.

I don’t see how you could NOT relate to enduring three years training twice or three times a day, selection trials, identification camps, random visits to your house, work, training facility, girlfriend’s house, parents’ house- anywhere, by USADA, having to make weight, having to read the ingredients on everything you eat, having to decline even the simplest of gifts offered to you by pretty much everyone… just to potentially get eliminated on the second day of competition in the preliminaries, playing a sport no one’s ever heard of in a competition that won’t even make television or even the damn crawl on the bottom of ESPN25, just because you love the hell out of what you do.

Oh wait, I see how you can not relate to that! Because these athletes are REWARDED with riches beyond dreaming! Like a maximum of $5000 for school! Or a MAXIMUM of $25,000 (depending on sport, medal, and quality of competition! Or a part-time JOB!

Wow. Only three-plus years of work to get ALL THAT??!?! How come EVERYBODY’s not doing it?!?!?

This is not the Pit, but I would like to take this opportunity to express my extreme displeasure at those who belittle the accomplishments of international amateurs as the product of drug-fueled professionals operating on a mercenary basis.

While it doesn’t register on the minds of many, and demonstrably not on yours, Koxinga, there are people out there who love sport, competition, and our country for their own sake. That our country recognizes that we gotta eat (and not much more than that) is appreciated, but to state or even imply that amateur athletes are USA-maintained and deployed bounty hunters is to display a profound and indefensible degree of ignorance and arrogance.

73

China in Tibet. and the Chinese nationalism we’ve seen about it doesn’t look anti-imperialistic to me. Communist claims of anti-imperialism have been bogus from day one anyway.

I’m sorry to say that all the US companies with major presences in China have proven very good at ignoring the human rights issues. If confronted, they will say much of what you are saying - we’ll ignore it because in the long run things will get better.

And, not to go all Godwin on you, Germany in the late '30s was hardly a pariah, with many contacts from the rest of the world, middle class and all. So, I have my doubts whether this would work.

That too, but I thought that the Olympic Village was the place that athletes hung out (and newsmen) and was not open to the public. I don’t think the people in the stands will get to talk to the athletes. Will the middle class be able to afford tickets? That’s another question, one I don’t have the answer to.

74

See, your arguments keep going past me, because indeed, there is hardly anything in here that I do relate to. I would once again gently suggest, though, that someone who is singlemindedly obsessed with a relatively obscure sport (not a put-down, just a fact) may not have the whole international context in mind.

The ironic thing is that we’re not necessarily disagreeing: I do think a boycott or other action should not at all be taken lightly, and the athletes’ committment to the games is not a small part of that. But your vehemence that the athletes’ view is the only thing that should be considered is a bit off-putting. As in the story you linked to, it gives off a distinct vibe of “it’s all about ME!”

75

But that’s the point. I DON’T have the whole international context in mind. I row in little boats against other people who row in the same little boats. So why do I all of a sudden have to be the statement?

The only thing? No. But allowing a politician to sacrifice my sporting life and the product of my passion for no gain whatsoever save his own self-aggrandizement is not only stupid but horribly unfair.

I don’t know what you do, or what you care about, or what takes up your life, but if someone you didn’t know decided to separate you from it without any understanding of what it was or why it was important to you, just to stick it to someone who was never going to feel it, you’d be as vehement as I am.

I don’t know how better to explain it to you. If I walked into your house and burned all your possessions just to stick it to the Japanese whaling industry, and demanded that you put on a happy face and endorse my actions, what would YOU do? Would you consider yourself selfish for being angry that I burned all your childhood photos and keepsakes?
My points are these:

  1. A boycott accomplishes nothing at all.
  2. A boycott destroys the careers of dedicated amateurs who won’t get another shot at this.
  3. Thus the boycott is unwarranted.

Of course it’s about the athletes. We are the only ones affected. There will be no effect on China. There will be no effect on the politicians who stopped us from competing. There will be no effect on Tibet. The only people who will feel anything will be us, and that will be terribly negative. Why shouldn’t I think it’s all about me?
Tell me, Koxinga, what do you think a boycott accomplishes and why?

76

On the contrary, the arguments China makes about Tibet are, in part, about liberation from the tyranny of the Lamas. They also leapt on the discovery that US special forces were involved in training Tibetans. But the point isn’t about the truthfulness of the narrative (though it was accurate when it was first crafted). The point is that it is one of the central arguments–reinforced by the embassy bombing, the spy plane incident, and a dozen other well-known and contemporary events.

You’re still focusing on contact, which I think is a very minor factor. Contact changes things on a micro level. Individual people discuss faux pas subjects like human rights and its leads to changed perspectives. I once discussed freedom of the press with a friend in China. She was able to very accurately summarize the arguments against a media controlled by huge corporations, but couldn’t even summarize the central arguments against a state media (even to disagree with them). I think she came away from that conversation with a different perspective.

But, like I said, the much more important factor is the economic enrichment of the middle class.

77

Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, I don’t think anyone here was talking about banning U.S. athletes from competing until you brought it up. People are asking if individuals should choose to “boycott,” whatever that might mean for the individual in question. This would be fundamentally different from the 1980 boycott, which was by presidential fiat over an issue few Americans gave a rat’s ass about (Afghan? That’s a kind of blanket, right?), and the 1984 boycott, which was clearly motivated by revenge.

78

Because you’re an adult?

79

Richard Parker, the idea of a boycott was brought up (at least tangentially) as early as post #2. I appreciate the idea of individual boycotts, which I think are much more useful than an athletic boycott handed down from above.

Koxinga, you might want to check your browser. Your post got cut off before you finished it, and it looks for all the world like you grabbed one sentence of my post out of context, ignored the actual point I was making, and took a cheap shot at either me or the hypothetical universal athlete.

80

The Dalai Lama does not support an Olympic boycott.