There has been rising calls from the West for boycotting the Beijing Olympics due to Chinese government’s clashdown of the Riot in Lhasa. The French president Sarkozy even threatened to keep the option open not to show up in the opening ceremony. The base for such discussions, is, as always, China’s violation of human rights in Tibet.
I thought the time for waging ideological war was over, I am apparently wrong. I forgot that people who grew up with required reading of George
Orwell’s Animal Farm and later did not read anything else would never get out of such brain-wash or open their eyes to see the completely changed world. The sad situation is that they seem to enjoy all the freedom to think and to speak and proudly believe so but volunterily and automatically take side based on ideology instead of facts and reasoning. Seek truth from facts. This should be the conciense of all journalists, but let me ask how many Western journalists have reported on the riot in Tibet out of such conciense? The double-standard and self-censorship Western media exhibted in reporting this event is astounishing. Please read the Economist correspondant’s report, who was the only foreign journalist that witnessed the event. Read about the Tibetan mobs’ violent burning, looting and attacking people purely because of their ethnic orginin. Which government in the world would sit there and watch this happen? Talking about human rights, how many have compared the life expectancy and child mortality rate in Tibet in 1959 and 2006? Isn’t the right to live the very basic human right?Indeed, China was a communist nation that had experienced many man-made catastophes. It’s also an oriental nation, with different set of values and way of life from the West. People are inclined to hate something they don’t know or understand. They comdemn instead of trying to learn. But didn’t China and the Chinese government lift the most people out of poverty within the shortest time in history? Isn’t China now shouldering a large part of the world’s growth need and try to handle its challenges domestic and abroad responsibly? For that, China deserves some respect, and Chinese people deserve some pride. I’m sure such pride will be shown in the Beijing Olympics when the world meet in Beijing. It’s a chance for the Chinese to get closer to the world through its openess and hospitality, and vice versa.
When I was in Beijing a month ago, I could feel people’s enthusiam for the Olympics in their everyday life. Can you imagine that in the glove box of every taxi driver on the road of the city is an English phrase book? People of Beijing are waiting for the world, with open hearts. Any reckless threatening of boycotting is not justified. Honestly, I’m not so keen on seeing Sarkozy’s twisted face in the opening ceremony. Of course that’s just some irrational, personal anger of a Chinese, who has the impression that no matter what happens, China is always on the wrong side in the eye of the West.
