A message for Beijing
THE CHINESE government has sought to exploit this summer's Olympics in Beijing as a prestigious symbol of success. The political message was to be that China's communist authorities should no longer be tainted by the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. But Beijing has been sending a very different message since March 10, when officials began a vicious crackdown on Tibetans.
Beijing's efforts to burnish its brand with a public relations campaign centered on the Olympics have collided with defenders of human rights and supporters of cultural freedom and autonomy for Tibet, who have been conducting a campaign of their own. In Paris, London, and San Francisco, they have disrupted the Olympic torch relay to protest the arrests and beating of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans, and the Chinese policy of turning Tibetans into a disdained underclass in their own homeland.
No matter how impassioned these protests have been, they cannot be expected to alter China's policy. Beijing's propaganda machine deflects all such grass-roots criticism, repeating the preposterous lie that all the troubles in Tibet have been instigated by the "Dalai clique," and that the Dalai Lama is trying to deceive the world when he condemns Tibetan as well as Chinese violence.
Because of the authoritarian way the Chinese communists rule at home - using cyberpolice to censor websites, arrest Internet dissidents, and intercept text and video messages - they have a scornful disregard for the opinions of the people.
The only gestures of protest that stand a chance of affecting China's leaders are those from presidents and prime ministers. President Hu Jintao can hardly ignore the principled gesture of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Merkel, who grew up under communist rule in East Germany, has refused to attend the opening Olympic ceremonies. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is considering doing the same. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, tangling himself in ambiguity, has said he will attend only the closing gala, but that he never planned to attend the Aug. 8 curtain-raiser in the first place.
If there is one head of state most likely to get the Chinese leaders' attention by refusing to attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing, it is President Bush. The president should say he will not go to Beijing unless the Chinese leaders enter a genuine dialogue with the Dalai Lama on autonomy for Tibet. But Bush should also make clear that the United States opposes any boycott of the Games, which only hurts the athletes. This kind of symbolic gesture would be a rare positive chapter in the Bush history. 