euro|topics - How to crank up the pressure on China?

04/07/2009

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Main focus of Thursday, March 27, 2008

How to crank up the pressure on China?

Are the Summer Olympics 2008 in Beijing at risk? The debate about how the world should act towards China in view of the events in Tibet continues. Who is in the best position to crank up the pressure: the politicians, the athletes, the IOC or the media?

Le Temps - Switzerland

Jean-Jacques Roth doesn't consider a boycott is the best weapon against Beijing. "At the moment we can note the remarkable efficiency of a handful of militants capable of besmirching the official image of the Olympics with their Ketchup-splattered T-shirts. This pressure will not wane; it will grow with every lap of the Olympic flame. If China understands early enough that YouTube can be more devastating than a boycott, that opinion beyond its empire is a force to be feared, it will find the pacifying gesture that will save its face, the Games and wounded consciences. The Olympic Games could then become the 'catalyser for change', which Jacques Rogge, the current IOC president, would like to believe in." (27/03/2008)

Dziennik - Poland

Robert Korzeniowski, director of the Polish television channel TVP Sport, describes the demands that athletes shoulder the responsibility of the world's political problems by boycotting the Olympics as "hypocritical". "Neither businessmen nor politicians have taken serious steps in reaction to the tragedy in Tibet. I haven't heard anything about orders for aircraft, cars, computers or other goods produced in China being cancelled. ... Businessmen and politicians want to use the Olympic competitors to clear their consciences while they themselves continue to pursue their political and economic interests. But why should athletes, of all people, suffer to make this world a better place." (26/03/2008)

La Tribune - France

For Eric Benhamou, "Beijing is not like Moscow in the days of the Iron curtain. China is a power that counts and the Olympic Games is an incontrovertible event for which Coca-Cola and McDonalds haven't hesitated to pay 100 million dollars to feature among the main sponsors. ... So a boycott is out of the question, nobody is proposing one, not even the dalai-lama in exile. Indeed, boycotting has never proven efficient while it would certainly do a disservice to the athletes themselves. Thus the riposte will be symbolic at most: the absence of a few leaders in the grand stands on opening day. What is more shocking is the IOC's silence. It had banked on the Olympic Games being able to force the Chinese authorities to be more open to questions of human rights. It has clearly failed. We are now left to hope that the CIO will prove stricter in the future, perhaps, why not, with a new charter." (27/03/2008)

Die Zeit - Germany

"The Olympic family, as it likes to call itself, must finally admit that it does indeed possess political power," Christof Siemes writes and explains: "What political power does sport have? Olympic officials answer this question as it suits them at any given moment. They urge the two Koreas to compete under a joint flag - as if that wouldn't be a political demonstration. Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch promoted the awarding of the games to Beijing above all with the argument that Olympia could change a city 'and even a country'. ... Just over a month after Beijing won the games, Samaranch's successor, current IOC boss Jacques Rogge, explained that his organisation was not a 'watchdog' for the observance of human rights in China." (27/03/2008)

» To the complete press review of Thursday, March 27, 2008

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