If Bush Boycotts The Beijing Olympics, I will Eat My Hat
 Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Okay, I don't wear hats, but if President George W. Bush actually announces that he will boycott any part of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, I will attempt to digest part of a scarf.  Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now suggesting that Bush should at least avoid the opening ceremonies due to China's treatment of Tibetan protestors.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first world leader who has announced plans not to attend the Games.

Tibetans have been banned from protesting the Olympics.  When Tibetan monks marched in protest of the Games and their people's oppression this month, police banned them from doing so, and detained up to 71 monks.  When asked about the march, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, "Some ignorant monks in Lhasa...did some illegal things that can challenge social stability."  They were said to be dealt with according to the law, but no specifics were provided.

The Tibetan government said today that the death toll from demonstrations is 140.  Death toll.  China has put the death toll at 22.

Today China said that any attempt to pressure the country by linking it with issues in Tibet would not succeed, and that the Olympics is not "a venue for discussion of political issues."  Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told The Hindu "There is no need for some country to stir up or flatter themselves about it."

Half of the world's population living in countries designation "Not Free" live in China.  China's ambassadors have declined UN peacekeepers' deployment to Darfur (read more about China's link to Darfur and Sudan here). 

Speculation in the press as of late has been that President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, might be influenced by Merkel's decision.  Sarkozy himself has said he is weighing China's response before traveling to Beijing.

Left, German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Right, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy

"Our Chinese friends must understand the worldwide concern that there is about the question of Tibet.  I don't close the door to any option, but I think it's more prudent to reserve my responses...I want dialogue to begin and I will graduate my response according to the response given by Chinese authorities," Sarkozy said last week.

It would be a bold move if Sarkozy followed in the German Chancellor's footsteps, considering he just made a multibillion dollar economic transaction in Hong Kong near the end of '07, when he sold Airbus and two nuclear plants to China for $17 billion. 

Olympic athlete and captain of India's soccer team, Bhaichung Bhutia, refused to carry the Olympic torch through New Delhi in protest this week (although the torch got the Beijing anyway); approximately 1500 protestors rallied outside the White House yesterday pressuring President George W. Bush to announce his own refusal to attend.

January 2007

"The President of the United States, if he is going to give credibility to the Chinese government, he should also take the time to say to them we are very concerned, not only about human rights - which are a very important value to us, but we are also concerned about our trade situation," Pelosi said in an interview.

Does skipping the opening ceremony only even accomplish anything?  Bah!  It's a gesture, sure, but it's also kind of like a much, much fancier version of skipping the speeches at prom.  It's not what you're really there for, anyhow.  Our President's presence there and our continuing contribution to China's economy is what signifies our acceptance - the administration and its entourage traveling to, staying in, fueling up in, getting photographed in, having a mini-summer vacation in Beijing.

And that's to say nothing of the massive amounts of money we've borrowed from China, one of our top lenders; the outsourcing of our own jobs there; the multiplied importation of Chinese-made products.

In my opinion, Pelosi could have ended this country's misdirection and economic downfall before it ever got this far, and she chose not to listen to Bush's low approval ratings; nor the over 1 million people who have signed a petition to impeach him; nor the protestors over these five years; nor the public's disapproval of Congress' inactions.  The administration was supposed to be accountable to her, in many ways.  Part of her position as Democratic Speaker of the House was supposed to be to keep the executive powers in check.  Yet she acts like a whisper in the wind, the meekest of oppositions whenever criticism is due - a figurehead of what a woman could have meant in her place, had she found her own voice.

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