A Political Glimpse from Ireland

Why China Worries Me

With less than a month to go to the Olympics, I am stunned that the Western Media as essential given The People’s Republic of China a free ride in terms of media coverage. China promised the Olympic committee that they would live up to their pledge to allow “free” reporting by the western media of the Olympics however given the stiff credentialing process required to obtain a Chinese visa, how many non pro-government reporters can we see entering the country? What is the solution? obviously, it is too late for many nations to boycott the games and given China’s increasing influence in the geopolitical stage ( Zimbabwe, Iran etc..), what can any nation do for fear of suffering trade repercussions?

I have been debating writing about this for fear of making some of my Chinese friends mad again however I cannot in good conscience support the Olympic games or the Chinese government. The biggest question on my mind has been moral relativity? Is it fair for me to criticize the Chinese government given the human rights abuses occurring in Guantanamo, CIA detention facilities and possibly other locations? Even if a comparison can be made, how can I equate the loss of human life in numbers? The simple answer I have reached is that with any political/moral argument, you have to take a stand at some point, you have to try to at least speak out against injustice regardless of the consequences. Here is a paragraph from an email I received today from Amnesty International:

First, let me tell you about Ye Guozhu and his family, who were evicted from their home and restaurant in 2003, which were razed to make way for the Beijing Summer Olympics.

Three days after he requested permission to hold a public demonstration against the forced evictions, Ye Guozhu was arrested. He was convicted of “stirring up trouble” and sentenced to four years in prison.

This is just one story of one person who has been arrested for opposing the Chinese “dream” of the perfect Olympics. After the head of the CNN branch in Beijing was called in to explain CNN’s allegedly biased coverage of the Tibet riots; the public should no longer expect truthful coverage of the situation in China because what major news network would want to lose the potential profits of over 1 billion people? The media has taken it increasingly easier on China which is why we only hear about stories like this from organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

I will speak honestly at this point, one of my best friends lives in Taiwan in an age where the current President of the country is unashamed to be pro-China. This bias from the leadership of Taiwan is logical given the recently slow growth within the Taiwanese economy which is all supposed to change according to Jim Rogers who recently stated that the best place to put your money is in Taiwan given its new relationship with China. The problem that President Ma has not taken into account is that the people of Taiwan are fairly split on China hence he has only given half the Taiwanese people a say in the potential eradication of “Taiwanese” as a distinct language.

You might think that I am overstating the situation, but given the demonstration of these tactics in Tibet where the Han now outnumber of ethnic Tibetans, is it truly inconceivable that China will not try to eradicate all remnants of the original Taiwanese culture and tradition in an effort to complete the “One China” fallacy? I think this is a distinct possibility and now the task lies with the media to ensure that the truth behind Human Rights in China is exposed given there new position as a player in the global arena.