Olympics in China: Shame on the IOC

Great Debates
21

Have any of you read a single report on human rights in the USA? How many non-whites have been executed? How many whites? How many coloured presidents have you had? How many women presidents? How many gay presidents?
How many whites have been sentanced do death for killing a coloured person? How many unarmed blacks gunned down by police, versus whites?

Have any of you read even a single paragraph on the old Tibet and what people went through there before the Chinese even arrived? Have you any idea what kind of ideas and actions Falun Gong stands for? Have any of you IOC haters even been to China? Do you have any idea what our bid consisted of? Do you ever see anything on your newsprograms about the staggering speed of the move towards freedom here in past years?

I think 99% of the people opposing our bid are doing so because of simple lack of information. DDG is right on the money, none of your “free media” have any interest in reporting the broader truth about China.

The fact remains that China today is a far more open and free society than it ever has been in it’s 5000 year history! Of course it’s not perfect, but look me in the face and tell me your country is, wherever you are from.

The olympics will open up China even further, and hopefully promote mutual understanding. On that note, I find this comment most amusing :

Frankly, China doesn’t deserve to be awarded honours that claim to advance the causes of peace and harmony

So you think we should send a platform of peace and harmony to some place that already has peace and harmony and doesn’t need it, just to celebrate how great we westerners all are?
Also, “opposing views” are not illegal here. They’re certainly not encouraged, but no one is going to throw you in jail for being unhappy with the government and saying so. We have pressure groups here, too, and they’re not all entirely friendly to the leaders. For that matter, the leaders aren’t always entirely friendly to each others views on human rights and other issues, the party is extremely splintered.
Did you folks even know that elections have been implimented for choosing representatives of provinces? That there are now people in the NPC that actively argue for the cause of people who feel downtrodden by corruption in the government?

The notion that human rights are going to deteriorate because of the Olympic games is frankly ridiculous. If anything, it will accelerate the already rapid move in the right direction on those matters.

You folks need to gain some perspective on this issue, perhaps by visiting us or picking up a book that wasn’t written to defame the pinko commie bastards as a whole.

— G. Raven

p.s. sorry about the post being all over the place, I get a tad emotional about this issue and hate to see all the misinformation floating around about this beautiful country.

22

Just curious, how many of us would be in jail right now if we were having the above exchanges in China?

23

You ARE having this exchange in China, among other places.

And none of us is going to jail, I assure you :wink:

— G. Raven

24

Of course not. Well, at least not as long as you continue to take the correct position on this matter. I do suggest you stay away from any research on democracy, however.

25

Matt, I don’t blame you for being upset. You didn’t have a say when Montreal bid for the 1976 games, yet you still get to help pay for the “Big Owe”.

26

Actually, I read the Amnesty International report on every country in the world, every year. And China and the USA aren’t even in the same league. (I’m not American, BTW.)
For all its sins, the United States is a country that, like all democracies with some respect for the rule of law, is trying its best to be a free and honorable state.

China isn’t even making the effort. No real elections (Choose Your Communist doesn’t count), no opposition parties. Little allowances of “Freedom” mean nothing at all; until China’s dictators are willing to submit to an ELECTION themselves, rather than show elections for impotent local representatives, it’s all just little favors from the head jailer, not real freedom. The United States at least makes an effort to imprison and/or execute people who commit real crimes; China does the same thing for people who simply disagree with the government on political (or religious) matters.

I’m sure Poland had lots of internal problems in 1938.

Do you know what Christians stand for? Muslims? We should round them all up and do the sort of thing China does:

Yessirree, when someone disagree with you, the best thing to do is torture them to death.

YES!

The 2008 Olympics will not “open up” China, will not advance the cause of democracy and freedom, and will not help the ordinary Chinese (it hasn’t helped the ordinary citizen in any other country it’s ever been held in.) It’s ludicrous to think a two-week sporting festival will cause a pack of murderous dictators to say “Well, gosh darn it, the modern pentathlon has insired me to stop shooting people.”

The Olympics doesn’t cause anyone to gain freedom or democracy, unless they get the chance to defect. It’s a goddamn track and field meet. No Olympics has ever helped the underprivileged or the enslaved, and this one will be no different. In fact, the established pattern is that people in the host city get seriously screwed over.

The awarding of the Olympic games has NEVER, ever, had anything to do with “Helping” the host country become more democratic, which is why it’s almost always been held in democracies. That has never been its purpose or its intent. To suddenly pull that argument out of a hat is pure excuse-making drivel, and everyone knows it.

Beijing got the Olympics because Juan Antonio Samaranch, an odious jerk with not an ounce of ethics or scruples, wanted it to be so, he having been paid handsomely by China to engineer a Beijing win (probably twice; he managed to screw it up for the 2000 bid.) There was no intent on the part of the voters to “Help” China foster freedom and human rights - they were, as they have been for every bid going back two decades, just voting the way the bribes went. If China wanted freedom they’d already be arranging for Jiang Zemin to face the electorate. Why would they need to host a sporting event to implement democracy?

Is that a fact?

and

and

I see now. China DOES allow you to oppose the government - unless, of course, they don’t, for reasons as varied as using the Internet to talk about the government’s crackdown on human rights, or belonging to a banned party, or promoting reform. Or unless you’re one of these people:

and

The Olympics will stop none of this and anyone who says otherwise is a goddamned fool. And if I were saying this in China, I’d have a darned good chance of going to jail. If I tried to publish it those chances would increase exponentially. You, of course, are taking the legally permissible position, so you’re okay. For now.

27

I could post another long post full of the good things happening in China recently, how much things are changing for the better. I could also restate the fact that things have NEVER been better here. Not ever. And I could point out that places like Singapore, Malaysia, pre-election Taiwan and S-Korea have all avoided being branded as murderous thugs hellbent on subverting the worlds bodily fluids.
I could futhermore point out the fact that S-Korea had was a brutal dictatorship when it was awarded the games, I wonder why there was no outcry then?

I could also point out to you the fact that there is no broad support for elections in China and the places that have had elections forced uppon them by the US have usually succumbed to severe political unrest in a matter of years or even months. Sociologists will agree that elections are by no means a certain way of achieving democracy or human rights.

But I’m obviously not going to convince anyone that believes the current Chinese government is a bunch of murderous thugs. I give up.

Why don’t ya’ll just go on believing all that and stay out of China when it’s time for the Olympics, we won’t miss you.
— G. Raven

28

To put China and western countries in the same league when it comes to freedom and human rights is just preposterous. The truth is by any western standard China is a very repressive regime. At the same time, we have to deal with reality. China is what it is and it would be foolish to say to them they have to become a western-style democracy overnightas that is just impossible. It is true things are getting better but they still have a long way to go. One reason things are getting better is most definitely outside pressure but this too can be overdone and backfire. It is difficult to say and each instance has to be considered individually. I am sure the Chinese government will use the Olympics for their own propaganda. At the same time they know they have to pay a price in terms of outside scrutiny. I would say, on the whole, the net effect will be positive. Engaging China is a good thing as it promotes positive changes. Isolating it would probably backfire as the government would be less subject to outside pressures. I would say the more engagement, the more pressure you can put without it backfiring. This event will have a strong stabilizing force in China for the next 7 years. If people and their leaders are basking in the glory of preparing the games, they are much less likely to think invading Taiwan or causing trouble in the South China Sea is a good idea. If you isolate them to the limit, these things have a greater chance of happening.

Morrison’s Lament, your defense of the Chinese government in persecuting its people for religious or political reasons is untenable except in the light of “shit happens and this shit is not as bad as the great leap forward or the cultural revolution”. Falun Gong is persecuted because they are a large group which can get powerful and challenge the monopoly the government has on power. They are not bad or evil in any way. They are legal in Hong Kong and in the rest of the world and I don’t see terrible things happening. Other religions like catholics, are also persecuted. That is just not defensible by any civilized standards.

Your argument that Tibet was a backward country improved by China’s invasion is the official line of the Chinese government and what every Chinese person will tell you because that’s all they know to say. I always tell them that (a) considering China between 1949 and 1975 as an advanced country who should colonize backwards countries has to be a joke and (b) if more advanced countries have a right and a duty to colonize and improve backward countries, that legitimizes European colonialism (which China loves to hate) and the western world should have invaded and colonized China during the last half century.

Your arguments are just a repetition of Chinese propaganda. The only defense for China now is that it is not as bad as it was before which is not saying much. That is like saying a serial killer who used to kill once a week now only kills once a month. That does not make him a good person. OTOH, we have to deal with reality and reality is that China still has a long way to go. Preaching about how things would be in a perfect world is not going to achieve anything and it is better to deal with reality and do things to make things better even if they are still shitty. The perfect is the enemy of the good (and of the possible). Preaching the perfect may make the attainable good unattainable.

On the whole I believe the games will have a positive effect on China and its relations with the world. That does not mean China does not have a long way to go. Concepts like individual rights, rule of law, limits on the powers of government, etc. which have been a substantive part of western culture for have hundreds of years, are still unknown in China. They have a very long way to go.

29

Could we? That’d be great!

(I say as I’m dragged off to the Pit.)

30

Well, in the sense that they’re no longer in the business of the wholesalde killing of tens of thousands at a time, I agree that things are better. Other than that, the relatively small amount of freedom available to Chinese people (even those with U.S. passports!) seems to be cyclical. And yeah, right now the cycle is modestly on the upside, unless you are an American scholar, and even those they seem to be expelling instead of exectuting after the show trials.

South Korea, for all its repression prior to recently, has not routinely killed its dissidents since the '70’s. Nor does Malaysia (affilaited gang problems notwithstanding). Singapore I confess to know knowing less about.

Morrison, “I live in China” != “I am a China expert.” I know all about the development of democracy that occurred in Taiwan over the past several years and of their autocratic past. Same with Korea. I have been to China several times, and am responsible for overseeing investments in several water projects, hotels and other stuff (which I didn’t select – in fact, I got a nice bonus for recommending against them, just as I did for successfully convincing my bosses to keep their money the hell out of Indonesia.)

I know which work camps use criminals convicted of violent crimes and which use political prisoners under the rubric of “mental illness” and which use a combination. I know your train schedules, when Beijing will run out of fresh water, the stress loads planned for dams on the Three Gorges project and which airspace may be opened to the west and which never will. I even know what events would cause China to devalue, and China doesn’t even know that!

So I would respectfully ask that you keep your “I saw a parade with happy people, so I know China” platitudes to yourself.

The IOC and China deserve each other. Corrupt managements threatening to ruin things for innocent people.

31

Um, no. It may have something to do with lack of access by journalists, who would probably pollute the minds of the happy Chinese people with all that tommyrot about democracy, including elections and similar silliness. Of course, to prove its staggering new openness, China will no doubt let Western reporters roam all over the country during the Olympics to search for the truth.

Right.

ML, I’m going to take your references to precious “bodily fluids” as an indicator that your comments about China are in the spirit of “Dr. Strangelove”, and are therefore an attempt at black humor.

If anything, the next 7 years will likely see increasing crackdowns as the Chinese government attempts to promote a unified happy face to the world. They’ve got their Olympic bid, a boycott is untenable (I’m not sure even absorption of Taiwan would provoke sufficient outrage) and there’s money to be made all around - which is at the crux of the matter.

How many of us who voice opposition to oppression in China are making a concerted attempt to boycott Chinese products, even those made by slave labor or under other inhumane conditions?

32

Completely and totally irrelevant. Means nothing at all.

A government doesn’t get points for doing things right. Every government does more nice things than you could list ina post on the SDMB, even vicious dictatorships like China, Nigeria, Cuba, etc.

The proper way to judge a government is by having them lose points for doing things wrong. China loses a lot of points. Banning opposition parties and torturing people to death for their religion is awful no matter how many trinkets they hand out. Not having elections makes the government nothing more than a pack of tyrants no matter how happy you claim the people you know are.

But hey - if public support for the government is so great, maybe they should hold an election. What have they got to lose?

Because most people just weren’t paying attention. At the time Seoul got the Games, few cities even WANTED it (the previous Games, in Los Angeles, were given by acclamation because no other city on earth wanted them.) But Seoul shouldn’t have gotten them, either. Neither should have Moscow or Sarajevo.

You don’t get a lot of public support for opinions that, when you express them, the government runs you over with an APC.

Tiananmen Square convinced a lot of people to keep their true feelings to themselves, I’ll wager. And the ongiong torture, imprisonment and murder of political dissidents keeps the ball rolling.

Who is suggesting anything be “forced” by the US? I’m suggesting the kindly old gentleman who run the Chinese government you seem to adore hold a few elections. It’s up to them, after all. And if they’re so well supported, why don’t they? Do you think perhaps they’re scared of something?

33

I am not going to defend the practices of the government of China but I will argue that the Chinese people, like every other people, elections or no elections, have the government they have given themselves. It is not the case that the Chinese people are a great majority suffering under the dictatorship of a very few. This is just simplistic. The Chinese government has ample support. Of course, we agree that people who are against it pay a high price and that this is not acceptable by our standards. But it is not a case of oppression of a great majority by a tiny group. The Chinese have the government they have given themselves and the goverment they deserve. They, like any other country, benefit as a group from the good aspects of their government and suffer the bad ones. That is also true in any other country. They are beginning to see the benefits of things like the rule of law and free markets and they are moving in that direction. But it is not as simple as saying “the US should impose a democracy in China”. This is just not possible and the Chinese people would never accept the best of governments if it were imposed from outside.

China needs time to evolve. It is moving faster towards capitalism than any country before. But things take time. A revolution now would probably cause such instability that it would be a disaster. But let the economy prosper and the rulers die of old age and you will have a new China ruled by entrepreneurs where political freedom will be absolutely necessary because without it, the economy can not go any further.

Again, we have to be realistic in what we can expect. There is no way in the world China is suddenly going to slap its forehead and realise it suddenly wants to be a western-style democracy. It takes time and China is moving in that direction. From western countries it will take pushing, reassuring, being nice, being firm, helping, … a very difficult combination. But the main thing is time: the old leaders will make way for younger people with a very different view of the world. You still have a lot of leaders up there, especially military leaders, who lived through the cultural revolution and the cold war. They cannot imagine losing their grip on power and it would be very traumatic to take it by force. But with a little time, they will all be dead or senile, and a new generation will have taken over.

Elections or no elections, the Chinese people have the government they have given themselves and they do not want us imposing anything on them. So, while the Chinese dictatorship may be repugnant to our senses, I believe engaging them will have a more positive effect than isolating them. By engaging them we gain opportunities to put pressure on them, to preach by example and to create the need in their country for more freedom. Trying to impose anything from outside would be received with almost unanimous resistance.

A related article in the Washington Post: Younger Chinese Blend Patriotism, Admiration of U.S. – Students Embrace American Ideals, Resist Outside Pressure for Change

34

[the following post is guaranteed 100% sarcasm-free]

It occurs to me to wonder what part of China you live in, Raven. Is it possible that you live in a large urban, heavily Westernized area, where you’re more likely to see reforms and openness, but that in the less Westernized areas, and in the areas not as open to Western journalists, there’s more repression?

We get a very mixed message from the American media on China lately. On the one hand, there’s the Falun Gong stuff, the Tienanmen Square stuff, the arrest, prosecution, and expulsion of scholars, both American and Chinese. OTOH, there’s the bi-monthly piece on “the Chinese economic miracle”, a.k.a. “China enters the Global Village”, with lots of footage of 80-story Shanghai skyscrapers under construction, McDonalds marquees in Chinese, and bored-looking Chinese teenagers sitting around smoking cigarettes.

This makes it very hard to tell what’s going on.

35

>> This makes it very hard to tell what’s going on.

Well, no, China is a big country and all those things and many more are going on.Can you imagine trying to descrbe the US or any other country by a simple definition? Who is the US? The East? the Midwest? The pacific states? the south? the rich? the poor? the Democrats? the republicans? The pro-gun? the antigun? The ignorant? the knowledgeable? … The USA is the sum total of all that and much more. Likewise China has many contrasting and even conflicting people and views. The old military leaders who will do anything to hang on to power and have no clue of where China or the world is headed, have very different views from the younger kids who know all the tricks to get on the Internet around the government filters… or who are eating at McDonalds and imitating many western customs. If done judiciously the west can influence and help some groups to improve China’s record. If done without tact you can be sure you can unite all of China against you in nationalistic backlash. If you are trading and doing business and communicating with some Chinese, you can help those who are best suited to bringing change to China from within. If you isolate them, you are making them your enemies.

36

Major Feelgud wrote:

And heaven knows, a president having an extramarital affair with one of his interns is a much more egregious violation of human rights than, say, the Tianenmen Square massacre.

37

[b[Morrison’s Lament** – I understand you’re in the process of leaving the board but, before you go (if you haven’t already), would you mind helping me out a little with understanding a few things. Putting aside all the conditioned responses and ‘informed’ insights of others, can you fill out your perspective on how China has changed, is changing and Human Rights ?

Also, If you do see progress, how has that been manifest to you and do you see liberalisation moving along at a faster rate because of the award of the Games ?

38

No, it’s been imposed and maintained by a minority. The Chinese cannot chose their rulers.**

Why does this remind me of what “moderates” said to Martin Luther King in the early '60s?

And yes, Raven, the old fogy Cold Warriors in this discussion would no doubt benefit from hearing your vast collection of verifiable examples of human rights advances in China (not including things like puff pieces in the Peking Post about how Wang Li, Peasant of the Month, says he feels freer than ever before and would not hesitate to criticize his government, not that he would ever dream of attacking Party leaders to benefit the Western running dogs of capitalism).

*not sarcasm-free.

39

Whoops, I meant the Beijing Bugle.

40

Jackmannii, don’t be simplistic. As I said, the perfect is the enemy of the good. The Chinese have the government they have given themselves. The fact that they do not have elections does not change that. No government anywhere will survive if a majority of the people are against it. If you think China has a tiny group of people impossing their will over the huge majority by force, you are quite mistaken. What you have in China is a regime with ample support from a majority of the Chinese people but which does not respect the right of minorities to disagree in public. It is not only the Chinese government but the entire Chinese people who need to learn the value of respecting those who disagree with your point of view. Contrary to what you may thing the immense majority of the Chinese people are not clamoring for free elections tomorrow. They do not miss values they have never had. Even in Cuba, where the situation is much worse than China, the government has wide popular support. It is just not true that Castro and his brother are oppressing millons of Cubans. It is not true and it would not be possible.

>> Why does this remind me of what “moderates” said to Martin Luther King in the early '60s?

Well, that is a good example. It is taking the USA quite a few generations to achieve racial equality, and it still is not quite there. Now imagine that this was tried to be imposed from outside. Imagine how the USA would react if China or any other country tried to force their view of things on the US.

Morrison’s Lament is at one extreme and you are at the other extreme. None of the two are useful in dealing with the real situation. If you read my posts carefully you will see I am not defending Chinese values. I am merely pointing out what I see as a realistic approach to dealing with China. I believe your approach would not make things better for us or for China.