On Beijing Olympics, President Bush is a Great "Decider"
Wendy Liu
July 30, 2008
As a strong anti-Iraq War voter, I am no fan of President Bush. I feel as bad for the American military and Iraqi civilian lives lost as I enjoy late night comedians ridiculing the President.
But when President Bush announced during the recent G8 summit in Japan that he was going to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I couldn´t help cheering for him. The "Decider" decided right this time, especially when he said that not going would be "an affront to the Chinese people."
A group of others, however, was also talking about the Chinese people, or showing "solidarity" with the "long suffering" Chinese. They are the international motley crowd boycotting the Olympics or its opening ceremony: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, of the Labour Party, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, of the Conservative Party, our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on the Democrat side, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California on the Republican side, Mia Farrow of Hollywood on the left, pro-life activist Steve Mosher on the right, with the editors of the New Republic somewhere in between.
The mixed nature of this group is interesting itself. But who are the Chinese people that they claim to help?
As many of us saw recently in Ted Koppel´s Discovery Channel special "The People´s Republic of Capitalism," the Chinese people are those moving from farms to factories for a better life, making a fraction of an American worker´s pay assembling the same product, working as well as living on a construction site, taking driver´s lessons in their middle age, paying cash for a new home, showing status with brand name products, often American, joining a Bible school on Sunday, or even visiting a gay bar in the evening.
The Chinese people are also my mother and her fellow "veteran revolutionaries" finally tasting some good life in their advanced years; they are my brother and cousins, former Red Guards, ready to retire themselves while watching with pride their children doing better; they are my nephews and nieces taking a job or quitting one, getting married or cohabiting as they please, or even having a second child and not mind paying the fines; and they are my former schoolmates managing business, teaching college, or returning from overseas with investment and skills in manufacturing or online services.
Ironically, these "long suffering" Chinese are all with the Chinese government on the Olympics. They celebrated like crazy when China won the bid, they gave their bit preparing it, and now they are waiting for that proud moment, with the luckiest date in Chinese culture 8.8.08, to welcome the world to Beijing. If there is something they are against, it is the boycott of the Olympics.
So why indeed are the boycotters boycotting?
Some boycotters say the new China is the same old China in terms of human rights. I say they are blind. I know what "old" China was like, having lived through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s-70s, the Anti-Spiritual Pollution movement in the early 1980s and the beginning of the 1989 crackdowns. They cite Tibet and dissidents. Well, last time I checked, neither Dalai Lama nor Harry Wu is boycotting the Olympics.
Other boycotters compare the Beijing Olympics to the Berlin Olympics. I say they are prejudiced. Nazi Germany gave the world the most devastating war, misery and destruction. The Chinese government has managed the world´s largest reform and lifted the largest number of people out of poverty--400 million Chinese to be exact--in the shortest amount of time.
Still other boycotters suggest that with all its imperfections, China shouldn´t have been awarded the Olympics in the first place. I say use a mirror. If the Olympics are to be awarded only to countries that are perfect in social justice, in equality and well-being of their citizens and in international relations, not many countries can host it.
Although of various political persuasions, the Olympic boycotters do seem to share one thing: an air of condescension towards the Chinese people. Or maybe they just forgot that the Chinese are perfectly capable of starting revolutions against oppression, with China´s long history of peasant rebellions overthrowing dynasties, and with Mao´s revolution as but one version. If the majority of the Chinese are fed up, they will overthrow another "dynasty." But they are not.
When Ted Koppel asked one village matriarch in her 90s when in her long life was the best time in China, she said now. Who are the boycotters to say that she was wrong?
I just hope the boycotters won´t get caught peeking at the television broadcast of the Olympics live from Beijing where President Bush is enjoying the event with the Chinese people.
But when President Bush announced during the recent G8 summit in Japan that he was going to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I couldn´t help cheering for him. The "Decider" decided right this time, especially when he said that not going would be "an affront to the Chinese people."
A group of others, however, was also talking about the Chinese people, or showing "solidarity" with the "long suffering" Chinese. They are the international motley crowd boycotting the Olympics or its opening ceremony: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, of the Labour Party, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, of the Conservative Party, our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on the Democrat side, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California on the Republican side, Mia Farrow of Hollywood on the left, pro-life activist Steve Mosher on the right, with the editors of the New Republic somewhere in between.
The mixed nature of this group is interesting itself. But who are the Chinese people that they claim to help?
As many of us saw recently in Ted Koppel´s Discovery Channel special "The People´s Republic of Capitalism," the Chinese people are those moving from farms to factories for a better life, making a fraction of an American worker´s pay assembling the same product, working as well as living on a construction site, taking driver´s lessons in their middle age, paying cash for a new home, showing status with brand name products, often American, joining a Bible school on Sunday, or even visiting a gay bar in the evening.
The Chinese people are also my mother and her fellow "veteran revolutionaries" finally tasting some good life in their advanced years; they are my brother and cousins, former Red Guards, ready to retire themselves while watching with pride their children doing better; they are my nephews and nieces taking a job or quitting one, getting married or cohabiting as they please, or even having a second child and not mind paying the fines; and they are my former schoolmates managing business, teaching college, or returning from overseas with investment and skills in manufacturing or online services.
Ironically, these "long suffering" Chinese are all with the Chinese government on the Olympics. They celebrated like crazy when China won the bid, they gave their bit preparing it, and now they are waiting for that proud moment, with the luckiest date in Chinese culture 8.8.08, to welcome the world to Beijing. If there is something they are against, it is the boycott of the Olympics.
So why indeed are the boycotters boycotting?
Some boycotters say the new China is the same old China in terms of human rights. I say they are blind. I know what "old" China was like, having lived through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s-70s, the Anti-Spiritual Pollution movement in the early 1980s and the beginning of the 1989 crackdowns. They cite Tibet and dissidents. Well, last time I checked, neither Dalai Lama nor Harry Wu is boycotting the Olympics.
Other boycotters compare the Beijing Olympics to the Berlin Olympics. I say they are prejudiced. Nazi Germany gave the world the most devastating war, misery and destruction. The Chinese government has managed the world´s largest reform and lifted the largest number of people out of poverty--400 million Chinese to be exact--in the shortest amount of time.
Still other boycotters suggest that with all its imperfections, China shouldn´t have been awarded the Olympics in the first place. I say use a mirror. If the Olympics are to be awarded only to countries that are perfect in social justice, in equality and well-being of their citizens and in international relations, not many countries can host it.
Although of various political persuasions, the Olympic boycotters do seem to share one thing: an air of condescension towards the Chinese people. Or maybe they just forgot that the Chinese are perfectly capable of starting revolutions against oppression, with China´s long history of peasant rebellions overthrowing dynasties, and with Mao´s revolution as but one version. If the majority of the Chinese are fed up, they will overthrow another "dynasty." But they are not.
When Ted Koppel asked one village matriarch in her 90s when in her long life was the best time in China, she said now. Who are the boycotters to say that she was wrong?
I just hope the boycotters won´t get caught peeking at the television broadcast of the Olympics live from Beijing where President Bush is enjoying the event with the Chinese people.
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