Watching as a Sports Fan
Last summer Real Salt Lake played an exhibition game agains the Men's National Team from the People's Republic of China. As you might expect there were Tibetan flags and pro-Tibetan posters all around the stands. I wore orange, and I certainly wasn't the only one. This Deseret News article details how the Chinese team stepped off the field and refused to play until protesters put the flags and posters away. The ominously titled Chinese "Political Comisar" went around with stadium officials kicking people out of the stadium. I was appalled that officials at a state owned facility would bow to the cries of the Comisar in the face of freedom of speech.
Jump to spring 2008, we've been hearing for weeks about boycotting or not boycotting or delaying the decision to boycott the Beijing Olympics and/or Opening Ceremony. To me there's no doubt that China needs to clean up its act. But all the talk about boycotts and the like is just talk. It matters little whether or not George Bush goes to the Opening Ceremony or goes as a "sports fan." The only message that really mattered happened in the late '90s when President Clinton (Bill) restored most favored nation status to China and in 2000 when the restoration was made permanent. The reason MFN status for China was suspended in 1952 was their occupation of Tibet. What has changed since then?
The only legitimate answer I have to that question is that U.S. standards on human rights have lowered, probably even disappeared. Our only actionable concerns are economic, and for anything else there's only lip service. Take, for example, George W. Bush's comments Hillary Clinton's suggestion that he should boycott the ceremony, "Nobody needs to tell old George Bush that he needs to bring religious freedom to the doorstep of the Chinese, because I've done that now for … I'm on my eighth year doing it." Eight years (more actually) of saying one thing and doing another. What sort of message do we send the Chinese by verbally expressing displeasure with their human rights record and then sending hundreds of billions of dollars in trade their way? Add to that the fact that we rely on China and other countries to purchase bonds in order to finance all of our deficit spending, and China can bank on the idea that all the talk about their human rights record is, well, like I said.
Personally I won't be watching the opening ceremonies (I probably wouldn't have anyway) but more importantly I'll be checking the tags on my clothes and the stickers on the electronics I buy. (I guess that means no new iPod or iPhone.) To the extent that it's possible I'll be trying to boycott China until either government can get a clue. What else can I do?
posted by b r christensen at 4/14/2008 07:28:00 PM
6 Comments:
gently guys, it's my first time
I won't watch the opening ceremonies either. But that's mostly because I think the Olympics are boring as hell. Every two years, they ruin two weeks worth of TV.
That's funny... I was working on a similarly themed post. But I guess it can pretty much be summed up by pointing to this New York Times article. Basically, the whole notion of not politicizing the Olympics, particularly the torch relay, is historically shortsided at best.
As a man of letters I know next to nothing about Chinese history... but I have read plenty of Op-eds, and they have informed me that China has an acute sensitivity to national humiliations by foreigners, which might mean that these protests may not have a positive influence on Chinese policy. Add that to the fact that most Chinese nationals believe that Nepal is a superstitious backwater (not a perfect analogy, but: imagine if other countries supported an independence state for polygamists in the US) and we have quite a diplomatic pickle on our hands.
Although Brad, if you are boycotting China related goods, you are going to be in a double-bind. Apple may manufacture their products, but at least they never shut down a blog because the Chinese government disproved of its content (way to go Microsoft). Let's not even get started on Google.
Sorry if I stepped on your toes L-train. Although I think that article makes a different point than the one I was trying to. I agree, by the way, that saying it's about the athletes, not politics is not the way to look at it.
Also, I know there's the double-bind, I'm just gonna try to be more concious about the decisions I make in regards to China and Chinese products. There's almost no way I could truly boycott everything chinese without making drastic lifestyle changes. I probably couldn't find a keyboard and mouse to use if I were completely boycotting China. Boycott is actually too strong a word, I probably should have written more about simply being a conscious consumer. Things like buying from 3m instead of other brands of printable media at work, etc. make me feel better, even if they don't make much of a difference.
When you say China has the acute sensitivity do you mean China as represented by officials and official statements? Because I'm not sure Chinese citizens share the same sensitivities that their government appears to harbor, certainly some do I guess. The stock response to shutting down a blog or anything else is "the feelings of the chinese people were hurt by this blog (or protest, or political cartoon)." It was the response after the RSL match too. (I probably should have thought of that before posting. . . NKOTB wouldn't shut the blog down.)
I guess the way I see it is that it's obvious that the US' actions are speaking louder than our words about Tibet, Darfur, Pollution etc. I don't think I can do much, but I would like to do what I can to change those actions.
On the point of whether most Chinese citizens agree with the official party line on Nepal:
Chinese Urge Anti-West Boycott Over Tibet Stance
Excellent first post, B.
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