No Triumph of the Will’ for China

(Washington, D.C.): The Bush Administration is coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate that it truly comprehends the serious shortcomings of its predecessor’s policy of appeasing Communist China. Its recent decisions concerning, among other things, the resolution of the EP-3 affair, Taiwan arms sales, U.S.-PRC military-to-military contacts have caused some to contend that the President has not fully undertaken the necessary course corrections to square with his description of China as a “competitor” — let alone his pledge made last March to “stand up to those nations who deny freedom and threaten [their] neighbors or our vital interests.” The PRC is arguably the most egregious foe of freedom in the world today.

As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby points out in a column published today, an excellent opportunity is at hand to send the right sort of message to Communist China — and those keenly concerned about the degree to which American policy remains geared towards legitimating the government in Beijing, rather than helping to undermine it: The United States must shortly make known whether it supports or opposes giving the PRC the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Granting China this privilege — and all the attendant political benefits and commercial opportunities — would be to confer upon one of the planet’s most odious regimes a windfall not seen by a totalitarian government since 1936 when Leni Riefenstahl helped Adolf Hitler stage- manage and disseminate images of the Munich Olympics glorifying Naziism in her film, “Triumph of the Will.” The United States must not be party to the desecration of Tiananmen Square; the American flag must not be paraded by U.S. Olympians in China until that long- suffering nation enjoys the freedom for which thousands of Chinese died in Tiananmen at the hands of the same Communist despots now desperately hoping to secure the Games for the PRC.

NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS WOULD BLANCH AT THE THOUGHT OF STAGING AN ATHLETIC EVENT AT THE SITE OF AN INFAMOUS MASSACRE. BUT CHINA’S COMMUNIST RULERS, WHO ARE BIDDING HARD TO HOST THE SUMMER OLYMPICS IN 2008, ARE NOT NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS. SO IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE THAT THEY PROPOSE TO HOLD THE OLYMPIC MARATHON, TRIATHLON, AND CYCLING COMPETITIONS IN AND AROUND THE SPOT WHERE THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY KILLED AS MANY AS 2,000 STUDENT DEMONSTRATORS IN JUNE 1989: TIANANMEN SQUARE.

The highest aim of the Olympic Games is set out in the Olympic Charter: “encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Would staging races at a place of mass murder demonstrate respect for that goal – or contempt?

That is one question the International Olympic Committee might want to ponder before July 12, when it is to decide which of five cities – Osaka, Paris, Toronto, Beijing, or Istanbul – will host the 2008 Games. Each of the five has its drawbacks. But only Beijing is the capital of a totalitarian dictatorship. Does it make sense to confer the prestige and favorable publicity of the Olympics on a regime that routinely strangles freedom of speech and religion and imprisons millions of its citizens in slave labor camps?

That is another question for the IOC to ponder.

Supporters of China’s Olympic bid argue that the growing prosperity of recent years has brought about a greater openness in Chinese society – that ordinary men and women are increasingly free to live as they like and go where they wish. As the members of the IOC consider that claim, perhaps they will take a few minutes to consult Amnesty International’s recent report on China. This is how it begins:

“Zhou Jianxiong, a 30-year-old agricultural worker from Chunhua township in Hunan province, died under torture on 15 May 1998. . . . He was tortured by officials from the township birth control office to make him reveal the whereabouts of his wife, suspected of being pregnant without permission. Zhou was hung upside down, repeatedly whipped and beaten with wooden clubs, burned with cigarette butts, branded with soldering irons, and had his genitals ripped off.

“This horrific case of abuse is not an isolated case. . . . Torture and ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners is widespread and systemic in China. . . . They have often been perpetrated by officials in the course of their normal duties in full public view, sometimes as a deliberate public humiliation and warning to others.”

There are those who suggest that awarding China the Olympics could help reduce such atrocities. With the eyes of the world on Beijing, they say, the reformers would be empowered and the government would have to be on its best behavior.

But if recent Chinese conduct is any guide, it is more likely that giving the nod to Beijing will embolden the Communists to crack down even more savagely on dissenters and minorities. Instead of giving a boost to prodemocracy activists, the Olympics will strengthen the dictators’ conviction that they can do as they please, both at home and abroad.

No doubt Chinese officials have studied Olympic history; no doubt they know that the IOC has never pulled the Games from a host city because of belligerent or offensive behavior – not even in 1936 and 1980, the only times the Olympics were held in a totalitarian state.

Berlin was awarded the 1936 Olympics in 1931; two years later Hitler came to power and the Nazi terror began. Among many other outrages, Jewish and Gypsy athletes were expelled from German sports facilities. Yet at no point did the IOC seriously consider moving the Games – not even when German troops occupied the Rhineland, an ominous violation of international law.

For the Nazis, the Berlin Games were a propaganda triumph. They conveyed the impression, The New York Times wrote on Aug. 14, 1936, that Germany “is a nation happy and prosperous almost beyond belief.”

In 1974, the IOC chose Moscow to host the 1980 Olympics. Eight months before the torch was lit, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. It was an act of aggression so naked that even Jimmy Carter – who had once urged his nation to get over its “inordinate fear of communism” – was shocked. Some 60 nations, led by the United States, boycotted the Games in protest.

Who knows what China might be tempted to do between now and 2008? Like the USSR in 1980, notes John Derbyshire in the National Review, China today is unstable and unpredictable. Who can be sure it won’t commit another Tiananmen-caliber horror – in response to, say, an uprising in Tibet, or a surge of independence sentiment in Taiwan? And is that a chance the Olympic Committee wants to take?

One day – soon, let us hope – the Chinese people will be free to speak their minds, to worship in peace, to choose their rulers. When that day dawns, it will be time for Beijing to host the Olympics. But not now. Not while the butchers of Tiananmen remain in power.