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7 August 08 China in their hands
The lead up to this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing has been among the most controversial in living memory. The riots, crack-downs, protests and boycotts which have accompanied the countdown to the games have focused the eyes of the world on China in an unprecedented way.
With Amnesty International claiming that human rights are now weaker in China than they were eight years ago, many are questioning the decision to award China the games. The trouble is, victory for liberty in China will not look quite as we had imagined.
While it is true that the government’s strangle-hold on political freedoms remains intact, it would be impossible to claim that there has been no improvement, however incremental.
In awarding the games to China the IOC has followed the IMF and the general diplomatic trend of allowing China ‘into the game’, where the rules reward openness and transparency. It incentivised the government and acknowledged China as a peer, a first step towards bringing peer pressure to bear.
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The internet has been heavily censored in China since it first appeared there, but never have government restrictions on internet usage received so much attention as when the world’s press find themselves on the receiving end of it, as they did last week. The government’s response to the earthquake in Sichuan province was to allow unprecedented media access to the site and the rescue efforts attendant. Slowly but surely the engagement is working; it is opening minds and encouraging questions. The repression cannot go on forever, least of all while the whole world is watching.
The end-result may not have been what the west hoped, but the Chinese themselves haven’t given up their fight for liberty, and will continue to push for it in their own way. Change can’t happen over-night, and ultimately it is the Chinese themselves who will effect it. The west should not hope to paint Chinese public policy in its own image; the best we can do is to give the Chinese people the means to forge their own kind of liberty. The Beijing Olympics have succeeded in giving them a louder voice in the world media, and in dragging their government’s actions and attitudes into the spotlight.
But if we are not going to get what we asked for, why do we bother? For the same reason countries continue to go to the often crippling effort and ruinous expense of hosting the games every four years: aspiration drives us to try harder, to do more and better than we did. It banishes apathy and mediocrity, and for governments as much as athletes it encourages what should be an endless pursuit of perfection. Ultimately it is the hardship which adds value to the enterprise.
See also: Gold - no rush
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