Most recently, it has been China’s approach to Tibet that has awakened the ire of many across the world. The recent harsh crackdowns on Tibetan rioters in Lhasa and other cities in western China have sparked the protests that have snarled Olympic torch relays in Athens, London and Paris. Of course, the Tibetans themselves deserve a hefty share of the blame for the violence that occurred during the latest conflagration. The demonstrations were not all peaceful protests, a la Tiananmen Square, but often full-fledged riots, complete with ethnically driven violence against local Han Chinese and Muslims. Sadly but predictably, however, the Chinese response was vastly disproportionate. Troops and riot police entered Lhasa en masse, and deadly force was utilized. According to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, 140 Tibetans died in the crackdown. China disputes these numbers, but its closure of the areas of unrest to foreign journalists makes its claims unverifiable and leads many observers to wonder what the People’s Republic has to hide.
What is more troubling and reprehensible, though, is the reality that China’s ham-handed response is indicative of its larger historical posture toward Tibet and other entities on its border that do not accept the national identity promoted by the People’s Republic. Tibet, for example, has a culture completely separate from that of the Han Chinese, a history that includes a period when the Tibetan Empire ruled much of central Asia and a unique, monastic form of Buddhism. Despite this, China refuses to countenance any notion of distinct Tibetan identity. The PRC refuses to meaningfully negotiate with the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, ruled by the 14th Dalai Lama and an elected administration. Despite the fact that the Dalai Lama has indicated willingness to forgo independence in exchange for regional autonomy within the Chinese state, China prefers to insult him with such appellations as “a monster with a human face and an animal’s heart.” Similarly, China uses the pretext of fighting terrorism to justify vast repression of the Uyghur Turkish residents of the Xinjiang province. China’s right to rule these entities is severely questionable and its refusal to compromise exacerbates the problem. Bereft of its former Marxist principles, the PRC pursues a policy of national chauvinism, whipping Han Chinese citizens into a xenophobic frenzy and a maximalist desire to maintain firm control over such groups as the Uyghurs and Tibetans by forcibly subsuming their identities into the larger Chinese one. In this way, the PRC both stokes racism and legitimates oppression.
China’s external policies further violate the norms expected of civilized nations. China provides aid to some of the world’s most odious regimes, from North Korea’s Kim Jong Il to Myanmar’s bloody junta. Notorious even in the rogues gallery of China’s clientele is the Sudanese government. It is here that China comes perilously close to acting as an accomplice to genocide. China covets Sudan’s substantial oil reserves and has cultivated a relationship with the murderous al-Bashir regime. According to Global Witness, an anti-genocide NGO, China sold $100 million worth of weapons to Sudan, which the Sudanese and their janjaweed surrogates have used against the Darfur’s black population. China also used its veto on the U.N. Security Council to thwart effective international peacekeeping action, preventing a meaningful global response to this genocide. Due at least partially to Chinese intransigence in the name of amoral self-interest, 400,000 Darfuris have died.
Nor does the PRC show considerably more concern for its own citizens, especially those who seek to exercise and defend those rights that liberal democracies hold to be inalienable. Certainly, average living standards in China have ballooned in recent years, due primarily to China’s pragmatic phasing out of Maoist collectivism in favor of 1880s-style capitalism. A growing and vibrant urban middle class now exists in China and for this, the government deserves praise. Nonetheless, this economic boom has left much of the peasantry behind, mired in poverty, and ruled by the whim of local Communist Party satraps. China also strictly limits the freedom of religious conscience. Professing atheism is still required for party membership, and stated religious belief can hamper one’s economic prospects. China has also engaged in widespread persecution against Falun Gong, a religious practice based on meditation—members of the sect have been the frequent victims of torture.
China strictly curtails the freedom of speech and press. Access to the Internet is severely limited, with topics such as “free Tibet movement,” “Taiwan” and “democracy” often blocked. Reporters Without Borders has ranked the PRC among the 10 countries with the harshest restrictions on press freedom. Dissidents against Chinese policies face a combination of house arrest and imprisonment; the recent arrest of Hu Jia, a human rights and democracy advocate, demonstrates that the government, for all its talk of improving its rights resume, is loath to make any meaningful reforms. Faced with this laundry list of abuses, the PRC responds with the contention that such measures are necessary to build a “harmonious society” based on distinct “Asian values.” The success of liberal, tolerant Asian democracies like Japan and South Korea exposes the bald-faced lie inherent in that assertion.
The above is just a bare summary of the litany of wrongs committed by the PRC, one that deeply calls into question its suitability to host the games. The Chinese response, of course, is pontification on the harms of “politicizing” the Olympics. This claim is utter rubbish. Who, after all, trumpeted the games as their colossal, expensive welcome party to the elite ranks of the international community? Who specifically crafted a route that would send the torch through Lhasa, as if to legitimate, through the symbolism of the games, their rule over Tibet? China has politicized the Olympics from the start, and only when the global attention has rebounded onto the PRC’s abysmal human rights record has the Chinese government taken to whining about the games being co-opted.
Liberal democracies must now face the question of how to approach an Olympics hosted by a regime that represents the very antithesis of the Olympic credo. This is a complicated conundrum. On one hand, it is impossible to ignore or isolate China, which has emerged as a rising superpower and a key trading partner of the West. Recent history has shown that blithely slapping China down will only further the PRC’s campaign to replace communism with national xenophobia. Indeed, Western policy towards China has confirmed that the best way to effect change within China is to incorporate it into international life, giving it incentives to liberalize and allowing globalization and an increased access to information to corrode the edifices of autocracy. On the other hand, it is counterproductive to hand the PRC too much at once, giving it the impression that the free world will not hold China responsible for any standards of behavior.
At this point, an Olympics boycott is not warranted. China is hardly Nazi Germany, and to sit out on the games would punish athletes and only yield truculence and resentment in China and in the Third World. Simultaneously, China’s current conduct does not warrant the fulfillment of its desire that the leaders of the world’s powers be present to legitimize the PRC’s symbolic “arrival” on the world stage. The heads of the world’s democracies must set conditions for their appearance at the opening ceremonies. These would include the initiation of meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the liberalization of press controls, release of key dissidents and a cessation of running interference for the Sudanese at the U.N.. Meanwhile, Western publics should continue to utilize the torch relay as an opportunity to show the PRC exactly what they think of the current state of China. A combination of these responses just might help China get the message.