The Economist nails it on the head this week in a big way about the effect of the Olympics on China. The Olympics have forced the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to “reassert an authoritarian grip over Beijing” in a way that has not been seen in some time. Yes, the Chinese are guilty of human rights abuses by the West’s definition of that term (although much of their actions are far less worse than those of Canada, the United States, and a host of G8 nations over the last 100 years), but things were improving before the spotlight hit China and every “activist” with sympathetic aims and virtually no knowledge of China and its history other than what they saw for 30 seconds on CNN got all up in arms about the Olympic games. These uninformed “activists” are alone responsible for the push-back they are seeing from the CCP and should not be the least bit surprised.
It is unfortunate that the real lack of substance to the criticisms of a number of detractors of the games which consistently play over the airwaves cannot be detected by the average citizen who finds it easy to jump on the anti-China bandwagon. The masses reaction to media criticism of China has re-asserted the power of the thirty-second sound bite and shown that most people lack a true understanding of China, its history, and its suffering at the hands of Western powers.
The bottom line is that everyone should read the article written by The Economist and take a healthy read through a couple of history textbooks on China before they are ready to criticize its human rights abuses and culture while calling for a boycott of the games. I’m not saying that China is not guilty of what they are accused of, but am saying that before we make condescending statements and assume a moral high ground we should take a long look in the mirror and remember the ethic of reciprocity that our parents bestowed upon us – “treat others as you would like to be treated”.
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