Sydney protesters urge Olympics Boycott ABC Australia
China Rejects EU Call for Talks With Dalai Lama as Interference Bloomberg
India should boycott Chinese goods The Economic Times
POLL: Should the U.S. boycott or protest the Olympic Games in Beijing because of China’s human rights record? Napa Valley Register
From the London Free Press:
China has been repressing Tibet for almost 60 years and the rest of the world has not really cared that much.
That’s what makes calls for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics this summer so bizarre.
First, it won’t do any good.
Second, a boycott avoids the more significant question of whether economic sanctions should be imposed on China, as they were on South Africa during its apartheid regime.
Of course, unlike South Africa, cutting off trade with China would have a huge downside for western economies — which is why no one talks about it.
Third, boycotting the Olympics, assuming you’re not a world-class athlete, is a classic case of throwing someone else under a bus just so you can feel good.
Why should our Olympic athletes have to suffer for China’s actions?
They didn’t choose Beijing. The International Olympic Committee did (instead of Toronto, the second-place finisher for the Games) and when it did it was certainly aware of China’s dismal record on human rights — from Taiwan, to Tibet, to Tiananmen Square, to the repression of the Falun Gong.
Even the Dalai Lama, spiritual father of the Tibetan people, rejects a boycott of the Games.
