China’s lobbying games

Beijing doesn’t lack chutzpah. Its officials are lobbying in Washington to ward off the threat of a boycott at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Several lawmakers and others suggest Beijing is an appropriate target for such political pressure because of China’s close relationship with the tyranny in Khartoum, which is culpable in years of genocidal violence inflicted in Sudan’s Darfur region. China buys seven out of every 10 barrels of exported Sudanese oil and could squeeze Khartoum.

This newspaper is not about to endorse an Olympic boycott, but it does take issue with the premise on which China combats such suggestions. Beijing’s embassy suggests not only that it is “ignorant” and “unfair” to link Darfur and the Olympics but that doing so breaks “the universally recognized principle of sports being non-politics.”

The principle does not bear scrutiny. Sports and politics are not kept separate and rarely have been. Nazi Germany most notoriously used the 1936 games in Berlin to grandstand the master race (and Adolph Hitler walked out when Jesse Owens demonstrated what nonsense it was); Tommie Smith and other African-American athletes raised their gloved fists in Black
Power salutes while standing on the medal podiums of the Mexico games in 1968; the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow games to deny the Soviet Union the international acceptance it craved in the aftermath of its 1979 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan; the Russian empire struck back by boycotting the 1984 games in Los Angeles — and so on and so forth.

The games have long been used by host nations to showcase their modernity, power, and international prestige. Beijing worked doggedly to get the games for precisely these benefits. By unshackling itself from the economic strictures of communism, China has become a hugely successful international trading power while crushing political and religious freedom at home. It is thus both widely accepted and a rogue.

China wants to wear the games like a testimonial or badge of global acceptance — a rosette allowing it into the enclosure of top nations.

But it cannot have it both ways — inviting praise but complaining that criticism is out of bounds. As Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) noted, “to suggest that somehow it is unfair to ask those questions [about Chinese links to Khartoum] is ridiculous … If China doesn’t like the scrutiny, they can stop tacitly supporting genocide.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) described China’s activities in Darfur as “despicable” and said it was “entirely reasonable” to consider a boycott.

That’s right. A boycott may be a bad idea, but it is perfectly reasonable to consider such action. And there is plenty of precedent. No nation outdoes China in using all possible levers for political advantage. It cannot plausibly cry foul if other people do the same.