“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
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
RSS