Olympic Protests

China really, really, really doesn’t care. They’re not nearly as impressed with the moral authority of the West as the West is.

[...] h/t David [...]

One fascinating tidbit is how surprised Chinese citizens are by the protests, in large part because their media hasn’t had negative coverage about Tibet. I know the analogy breaks down at some point, but it does remind me of how some Americans are shocked or feel betrayed by people who protest US actions.

I doubt that China really, really, really doesn’t care about their international image. Because it’s more than moral authority, it’s international legitimacy, which has further ramifications beyond morality — there’s the economic and social aspect to consider.

Perhaps when you say China, you mean the Politburo and the Communist authorities. With the exception of the masses of rural workers, who are relatively disconnected from modern reality, I doubt that the Chinese people are proud of their violent subjection of Tibet — if they even know about it — and they would not likely stand idle as their country is marginalized.

Trust me, they don’t care. If they are caring, they’re getting pissed off about being held to a higher standard than many Western countries, or getting pissed off at Tibetans for making trouble.

A country the size of China can’t be marginalized. Once you’re that big, you can pretty much do what you want, within reason.

For sharp, on-the-ground commentary on China, I highly recommend James Fallow’s blog on The Atlantic. One of his posts from a few weeks back on this subject is a good read.

Perhaps I stated my case too starkly. I didn’t mean to imply that the protests are meaningless to China. I’m sure they’d prefer they stopped. But it’s not nearly so important to them that they’d actually cede territory over it. Particularly not territory that they consider to be rightfully theirs.

Nor did I mean to say that soft power is irrelevant to superpowers. It’s just much less relevant. I said that very large countries can do what they want within reason. The Bush example you gave is what I would call doing what you want without reason. American foreign policy was widely loathed throughout the world long before Bush, however, and it didn’t hinder our exercise of power significantly because it wasn’t so over the top like it is now. China has a long, long way to go before it gets as bad as us.

That’s a good point, but I think once nations hit a certain critical mass, they can essentially start manufacturing their own soft power at will. When the powerful keep asserting something over and over again, it eventually becomes the truth.

Now, having dislodged my head from my posterior, let me return to the specific case at hand. A great deal of countries have serious problems with territory where the local population wants to break away, or have partial sovereignity. If they don’t, they have religious/ethnic minorities that cause “problems,” and they don’t always deal with them in delicate ways. (I definitely don’t want to sound like I’m apologizing for this stuff here.) What China is doing is not really any different than what dozens of nations throughout the world are doing. I really don’t see any groundswell of moral outrage coming up any time soon in the world community.

If the country involved was Shitholistan, and Shitholistan had oil, no nukes, a weak military, and was aligned with Russia rather than the West, then you might see some action. But this is China, not Shitholistan.

Here is an interesting series of articles on China’s effect on the environment. It is a 10 article series with the last one being about their attempt to accomplish the “green” olympic status by this summer. It is an interesting series by the New York Times, and I think that it will help to paint a picture as to why many people have a problem with the Olympics being held there.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/08/26/world/asia/choking_on_growth.html

Unrelated, but still funny, is this cartoon. Enjoy!!!

http://www.uclick.com/feature/08/04/09/gm080409.gif

Good allegory, JH; you never fail to elicit, from me, a violent laughter that pisses off my roommate.

Howard French did an article on the social unrest in Tibet. Hu Jintao’s strategy, according to French, goes something like this:

“[Jintao] seems to be wagering that China can hunker down, keep a tight lid on Tibet through the Olympics and wait for the Dalai Lama, who is 72, to die.”

If this represents, in anyway, the true strategy of Jintao, then god help him. Tibet has gained worldwide recognition, and will probably only gain more as the time for the Olympics edges closer. Also, if the Dalai Lama does die, I highly doubt it will extinguish the call for autonomy. The Tibetan Buddist will find some way to connect a lineage to someone inside or outside the Tibetean region — and the issue will carry on, all the same.

Meanwhile, the pressure amounting worldwide is something for China to consider.

“President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has suggested that he might consider using his presidency of the European Union this summer to organize a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.”

What does this really mean? Well, in terms of overall power and influence, not a whole lot. However, it does signify that the international community has its eyes fixed on Tibet — China knows that and so does Tibet.

That strategy is pretty similar to the Israeli hard right’s strategy with Palestinian refugees. Let them stay in exile for a few generations and they’ll slowly lose their passion for nationhood. This century will tell how successful these strategies will be.

I just realized that last sentence was really lame. Oh well.

Falkland Islands and Great Britain, under Thatcher “the Milk Snatcher.”

Turkey (Please PLEASE for the love of God don’t tell my gf I said that).

How about Spain? It’s a genuine question; I’m not sure.

France has surely done some nasty stuff in North Africa in the last century or so.

While it wasn’t over disputed territory per se, Germany initiated a pretty extensive genocide some years back.

England in Northern Ireland.

America has extensively trained and funded savage right-wing militias in South America in the very recent past.

America invaded Iraq without provocation a while back, and continues to interfere in its internal politics.

Yeah . . . what about the Belgians in the Congo? I think Turkey’s got the hit on Cyprus — I can say that, right?

Britain also participated in this invasion.

If you consider South Africa Western, then yeah…ummm…South Africa.

Ok, I think David may get it. I’m tired of seeing your name on the recent comments list. Go away.

Turkey’s been misbehaving in Cyprus for a while, but their main crime is against the Kurds.

This, I should add, occurred during the NATO bombing of Kosovo, when the West was congratulating itself over its prevention of genocide in an Eastern aligned country, while a more extensive genocide was happening within the borders of a member of NATO in good standing (Turkey).

Let’s also admit that we have come along way in recognizing human rights,

If by “we” you mean continental Europe, fine. But America is torturing people at this moment. What’s worse, these are people who have been completely denied due process. We now break entire nations at will in the service of our own domestic psychodramas. No moral authority comes out of Washington. We’re the villains, not China.

“We’re the villains, not China.”

I would venture to say that the US and China are equally villainous in this matter….

Extraordinary rendition is extraordinary villainous. I think that’s fair to say.

http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/archive/atrocities.htm

Very compelling website workidda. Thank you for posting it.

Just for the record, the protests are a good thing for the international community right now. I’m very proud of our world when I see them. Historically, we’ve come a long way. Do I think they’ll make a difference? I doubt it. But its important that our policymakers feel pressured to take a tougher stand with China on these issues. I don’t think we risk as much by being tough with China as we think we do. There are just as many economists working in China as there are in the US. They can do a cost/benefit analysis as well as we can and they are not going to do something that jeopardizes China-America business relations.