Boycott Beijing Olympics?

[jasonw]

If memory serves me well, in 1970 my country was banned/boycotted from taking part in the Olympics, as well as from competing in other sporting tournaments like cricket and rugby world cups. It did NOTHING to stop the human rights abuses of Apartheid happening - that lasted until 1990 - twenty years later after our 'Olympics incident'. One may argue that it exposed the horrors of what was happening to the world, but countries like the USA and France still sat back and did nothing, preferring rather to maintain good business relations. At the end of the day it was president De Klerk's choice to free Mandela, and at the end of the day, its going to be the Chinese government's choice to do what they want regarding Tibet. If a football world cup was boycotted due to politics I'd be really angry. They can boycott the opening ceremony yeah, but leave it at that. Let the games be peaceful. One must remember that a country once invaded and colonialised (as China was by the Mongols and Tartars) can sometimes retain the scar of its past, forge a very strong national pride (also Germany under Hitler, post WWI), and in turn try neutralise the 'threats' to its hard-fought greatness and empiricism, which Tibet is doing by wanting independence. China would help their image immensely if they just gave the Tibetans what they want, or at least negotiated peacefully about it.

Humm i am not very sure by what you mean 'give the tibetans what they want'. Lets not talk about if Tibet is a country whatsoever. Those Tibetian protectors who go on the streets and burn cars and slaughter people are commiting criminal offences, or what they call it in us 'an act against humanity'. And worth noticing these protestors dont even take up 1% of the Tibetian population who is proberly happier under China's rule. Just by looking at what has happened in the past few months, disregarding Tibet's history and past, wouldn't 'giving the tibetians what they want' be giving in to the criminals?

How weird is it that people, politicans, countries from the west are 'concerned about human rights in china' and yet those who call for 'Free Tibet' has no idea that they are actually supporting the criminals, who even as the western media shows, are they one that the majority of Tibet civalians fear.

jason.

[Shambler]

But Jason isn't Chinese television state-controlled? Therefore you may not be seeing what we're seeing on international tv channels like Sky, CNN and BBC. What we see is Chinese police beating the c**p out of Tibetans, amongst other bad things. But as you say there are undoubtedly Tibetans who do want change, and also those who are happy under Chinese rule. Trying to make both factions happy is hard. Would you say the majority of Tibetans still want Chinese rule? Curious, because we could be getting the wrong end of the stick from what news channels are feeding us.

[ROXYRORY]

Hey Guys,
Funnily enough this week I was working in Amnesty International which I presume that you have all heard of. I do not think a boycott of the actual olympics is right. During the week this was talked about alot. Also what was discussed is that you cannot ask athletes from countries to boycoot the olympics. They have been training for mostly their lives , it is a huge honour .. and it is not fair to ask them. What we need to do is send letters to our heads of states and ask them to call on China to stop violating human rights. Some things are completely ridiculous as well like the whole " internet repression " they have 30 , 000 chinese police monitoring the internet. At the moment the human rights situation in China has worsened BECAUSE of the olympic games being held there.

[jasonw]

But Jason isn't Chinese television state-controlled? Therefore you may not be seeing what we're seeing on international tv channels like Sky, CNN and BBC. What we see is Chinese police beating the c**p out of Tibetans, amongst other bad things. But as you say there are undoubtedly Tibetans who do want change, and also those who are happy under Chinese rule. Trying to make both factions happy is hard. Would you say the majority of Tibetans still want Chinese rule? Curious, because we could be getting the wrong end of the stick from what news channels are feeding us.

Well let me explain the media agneda in hk first. The media in HK are may be to your suprise, more pro-wester then pro-china, but as we are so close to china, and hong kong people actually know something about china, the media has to feed us with the balance news. We have the 'apple daily' very anti china and pro western, 'mingpao' a more balanced news paper, and 'man hua bao' a pro-china newspaper. i read mingpao, and readers see monks beating up people and the police having to control the situation. Yesterday's news, there was an article bout a photograph being taken from a chinese war movie, and the french said it was the streets of Tibet! Even worse there was a picture of police being beated up by monks, and somehow it has been turned into the police beating up the monks! Again by the french...

as for tv, no in hong kong we have a very free media and speech, you can hold protesters and demonstations whenever u want and whereever u want, as long as it is peaseful. The media can report anything they want.And from our tv channels i can only see police arresting monks who has been slaughtering in the streets. The chinese goverment is really trying to be peaceful and careful with this as they are trying to preventreports that would ruin chinas reputaion.

also, cnn, bbc and everything else is not censored in china nor in other communist countries like china and veitnam.

well all i can say is that media is just a filter, no one would know the actual situation unless they are there themselves, but wahat we are getting here surly doesnt match what u are getting in the other end.
jason

[des liner]

While i believe the chinese human rights issue is terrible, the Olympics is a sacred tradition and a great sporting event which should go ahead. The IOC should warn china to "Buck up the human rights" to warn them that this wont be tolerated. I am looking forward to the olympics, it will be great. Why do Americans believe they own the earth? They meddlte in other countries bussiness, start wars because other countries do things a little differently. Dropping a nuke on Beijing would be terrible. China would go to war with America and a nuke war would begin. Far out i doubt that USA would think about nuking china. China has the man power to win. Tibet should hold a vote on wether the population want independence or not. If majority says no, the China gets it. Tibet says yes? Well then China should leave. Many people have been talking about this case in NZ. The Chinese imigrants have come under fire recently because there is alot of them, but a way to approach this is not war or boycotts. Deal with all the issues peacefully and sensibly. Usa should stop meddling with with other countries bussiness, allthough the pics from tibet are quite bad and China is being quite brutal. Anyways China gets what they want i suppose. There to big to listen to NZ! China = 1.3 billion people, NZ= 4 million+ people lol. HAHA were so small!

Des

[jasonw]

While i believe the chinese human rights issue is terrible, the Olympics is a sacred tradition and a great sporting event which should go ahead. The IOC should warn china to "Buck up the human rights" to warn them that this wont be tolerated. I am looking forward to the olympics, it will be great. Why do Americans believe they own the earth? They meddlte in other countries bussiness, start wars because other countries do things a little differently. Dropping a nuke on Beijing would be terrible. China would go to war with America and a nuke war would begin. Far out i doubt that USA would think about nuking china. China has the man power to win. Tibet should hold a vote on wether the population want independence or not. If majority says no, the China gets it. Tibet says yes? Well then China should leave. Many people have been talking about this case in NZ. The Chinese imigrants have come under fire recently because there is alot of them, but a way to approach this is not war or boycotts. Deal with all the issues peacefully and sensibly. Usa should stop meddling with with other countries bussiness, allthough the pics from tibet are quite bad and China is being quite brutal. Anyways China gets what they want i suppose. There to big to listen to NZ! China = 1.3 billion people, NZ= 4 million+ people lol. HAHA were so small!

Des

I dont think a vote should be held as Tibet is part of china and is just dont vote to decide on these matters. it is like holding a vote to decide if Auckland is part of NZ.
jason

[Markd]

While i believe the chinese human rights issue is terrible, the Olympics is a sacred tradition and a great sporting event which should go ahead. The IOC should warn china to "Buck up the human rights" to warn them that this wont be tolerated. I am looking forward to the olympics, it will be great. Why do Americans believe they own the earth? They meddlte in other countries bussiness, start wars because other countries do things a little differently. Dropping a nuke on Beijing would be terrible. China would go to war with America and a nuke war would begin. Far out i doubt that USA would think about nuking china. China has the man power to win. Tibet should hold a vote on wether the population want independence or not. If majority says no, the China gets it. Tibet says yes? Well then China should leave. Many people have been talking about this case in NZ. The Chinese imigrants have come under fire recently because there is alot of them, but a way to approach this is not war or boycotts. Deal with all the issues peacefully and sensibly. Usa should stop meddling with with other countries bussiness, allthough the pics from tibet are quite bad and China is being quite brutal. Anyways China gets what they want i suppose. There to big to listen to NZ! China = 1.3 billion people, NZ= 4 million+ people lol. HAHA were so small!

Des

I dont think a vote should be held as Tibet is part of china and is just dont vote to decide on these matters. it is like holding a vote to decide if Auckland is part of NZ.
jason

I think Des means a referendum which would decide if the majority of Tibetans would like to stay apart of China. Yes, Tibet is already in China but the vote would be whether they should remain in China. It happened in Canada in 1980 and 1995. The province of quebec held referendums to decide if they should remain apart of Canada or become their own sovereign state.