“Do not mix sports and politics!” That defiant response from China’s rulers to the threat of a boycott of this summer’s Beijing Olympic Games does not stand the test of reality. Sport and politics have always been closely linked.
Obvious examples abound. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were dominated as much by Nazi propaganda as by the athletic events. During the Cold War, “ping pong diplomacy” helped revive official relations between China and the US. In 1990, Germany fielded a single Olympic team before the country reunified.
To claim that politics and sports can be any more separated in today’s media age than they were in the past is especially naive. The Olympics were awarded to Beijing for a mixture of economic and political reasons, and China wanted the Games for the same reasons. The current tension between China and (mostly) Western public opinion on the eve of the Beijing Olympics is the result of incompetence, hypocrisy and legitimate but potentially counterproductive indignation.
China’s incompetence in its treatment of the crisis in Tibet should come as no surprise. The Chinese regime is, quite simply, a victim of its inability to reform itself. China saw in the Olympics a symbolic opportunity to consolidate and celebrate its new status in the world. Caught by surprise in Tibet, and by the virulence and popularity of what they described as “anti-Chinese” sentiment, China’s rulers have resorted to the traditional tools of authoritarian regimes, turning their citizens’ deep nationalism and sense of humiliation against Western critics.
The Chinese sound almost as stunned by the supposed mistreatment of the Olympic torch in London, Paris and San Francisco as Americans were back in 2001: “Why do they hate us so much?” “What have we done to them?”
Self-isolated from global political realities and incapable of grasping the meaning of “civil society,” the Chinese regime encourages its public in expressions of defiance of all who fail to “respect China,” which only reinforces negative reactions.
But the West’s hypocrisy nearly matches the Chinese regime’s incompetence. The moment the international community “bestowed” the Olympics on China, the West demonstrated how little consideration it actually gives to human rights and democracy. The idea that the Chinese regime would quickly reform the country into an open, moderate, and benevolent giant was either a fraud, a gigantic misperception, or wishful thinking.
The dilemma posed by China for democratic regimes is understandable. Caught between their desperate need for finance and markets and their need to respond to their citizens’ sentiments, they oscillate between condemnation and reassurance of China, struggling to find a coherent path that defends the West’s principles without damaging its economic interests.
Now the West believes that it has found a “third way” by threatening to boycott the Olympics’ opening ceremony, but not the Games themselves. Thus, the Chinese people, the world’s athletes and a planet hungry for “bread and circuses” will not be deprived, and China’s rulers will not “get away with murder” in their contempt for human rights and international public opinion. The problem is that such a choice requires governments’ absolute determination to stand by their word.
The power of indignation is a necessary component of a transparent and interdependent world that has lost the privilege of ignorance. But selective responses to the actions of dictatorships can be problematic and counterproductive.
China, for both good and bad, is a status-quo power that does not want to rock the boat of the international system — a power largely satisfied with its new status, but one that does not want to see its regime transformed, especially through external pressures.
Let us have no illusions: No “conditions” imposed from outside will bring about the “China we deserve” in the way, after World War II, we got the “Germany we deserved” through a process of integration and reconciliation. If the Chinese reform their political system and improve their human rights record, it will not be the result of anything we in the West say or do, but because they realize that the absence of the rule of law jeopardizes their long-term ambition to be strong and respected.
Dominique Moisi, a founder and senior advisor at Ifri (French Institute for International Relations), is a professor at the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw, Poland.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
In 2009, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) made a welcome move to offer in-house contracts to all outsourced employees. It was a step forward for labor relations and the enterprise facing long-standing issues around outsourcing. TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) once said: “Anything that goes against basic values and principles must be reformed regardless of the cost — on this, there can be no compromise.” The quote is a testament to a core belief of the company’s culture: Injustices must be faced head-on and set right. If TSMC can be clear on its convictions, then should the Ministry of Education
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) provided several reasons for military drills it conducted in five zones around Taiwan on Monday and yesterday. The first was as a warning to “Taiwanese independence forces” to cease and desist. This is a consistent line from the Chinese authorities. The second was that the drills were aimed at “deterrence” of outside military intervention. Monday’s announcement of the drills was the first time that Beijing has publicly used the second reason for conducting such drills. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is clearly rattled by “external forces” apparently consolidating around an intention to intervene. The targets of
RSS