April 09, 2008
Let the Games Go On
By Joan Chen
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; A19
I was born in Shanghai in 1961 and grew up during the Cultural Revolution. During my childhood, I saw my family lose our house. My grandfather, who studied medicine in England, committed suicide after he was wrongly accused of being a counterrevolutionary and a foreign spy.
Those were the worst of times.
Since the Cultural Revolution ended in the late 1970s, however, I have witnessed unimaginable progress in China. Changes that few ever thought possible have occurred in a single generation. A communist government that had no ties to the West has evolved into a more open government eager to join the international community.
A state-controlled economy has morphed into a market economy, greatly raising people's standard of living. It's clear that the majority of the Chinese people enjoy much fuller, more abundant lives today than 30 years ago. Though much remains to be done, the Chinese government has made rapid progress in opening up and trying to be part of the international community.
Last month I went to China and spent four weeks visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Chengdu. The people I met and spoke with are proud and excited about the Beijing Games. They believe that the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to showcase modern China to the rest of the world. Like many Americans, most Chinese people are disturbed by the recent events in Tibet. But after watching the scenes of violence and arson by the rioters, the Chinese believe that the government is doing the right thing in cracking down to restore order.
The Olympic torch is in California and is to be carried through San Francisco today. In a resolution criticizing China, Chris Daly, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that demonstrating against the torch relay would "provide the people of San Francisco with a lifetime opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese people gain more freedom and rights." To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign Daly's resolution.
This statement could not be further from reality. For one thing, the Chinese are a proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but they know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one can grant them freedom and rights from afar. The stigma of Western imperialism and the Opium Wars also remains a strong reminder of the past, and Chinese people do not want their domestic policies to be dictated by outside powers. They also do not want the United States to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Games. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished nothing. A U.S. boycott of the opening ceremonies in Beijing would be counterproductive for relations between the two countries.
For decades, anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent millions of dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is the only voice that's acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media and to the U.S. government. But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and farsighted. We need to make more friends than enemies. Remember what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let's celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge for friendship, not a playground for politics.
The writer is an actress and director. She became a U.S. citizen in 1989.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040802907_pf.html
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March 29, 2008
I strongly support Beijing Olympics: Dalai Lama
Updated: 03-24-2008 Email this Page
New Delhi, March 23 (IANS) The Dalai Lama Sunday strongly supported the staging of the Olympic Games in Beijing later this year, saying the show must go on despite the present confrontation between Tibetans and Chinese authorities in Tibet.
'I support the Olympics being held in Beijing,' the Dalai Lama told reporters here on the sidelines of a five-day meditation camp he is leading here.
'I have always supported (the games). They should take place in China,' he added.
'They are the hosts. The Olympics should take place in Beijing,' the Tibetan spiritual leader maintained.
His statement came on the day Beijing accused the Dalai Lama of plotting 'terror' in Tibet and colluding with Uighur separatists in Xinjiang as it attempts to stamp out anti-Chinese unrest ahead of the Olympics.
The People's Daily, the ruling Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, said Sunday that the Dalai Lama had never abandoned violence after fleeing to India in 1959.
'The so-called 'peaceful non-violence' of the Dalai clique is an outright lie from start to end,' the paper maintained.
'In 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games, eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, will arrive. But the Dalai Lama is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence,' the newspaper added.
Also on Sunday, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering said a boycott of the Beijing Olympics should be considered if China does not re-evaluate its actions in Tibet.
'Beijing must decide. It must negotiate with the Dalai Lama immediately,' he told the mass circulation Bild newspaper.
Boycott measures were justified if there was no attempt at reconciling the differences, Poettering said.
'We should not exclude the possibility of a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. We want a successful Games, but not at the price of the cultural genocide of the Tibetans,' he said.
The European Parliament is to discuss the situation in Tibet Wednesday.
New Delhi has been witnessing violent protests against the alleged Chinese repression in Tibet.
On Friday, a group of Tibetan activists broke into the Chinese embassy here after scaling its boundary wall.
The police later detained an unspecified number of Tibetans outside the embassy in the capital's diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri.
http://www.andhracafe.com/index.php?m=show&id=32619
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Dalai Lama against Olympic boycott
Dalai Lama against Olympic boycott
Posted Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:03pm AEDT
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, has reiterated he is against any boycott of the Beijing Olympics, saying Chinese people should not be blamed for the situation in his homeland.
"The Olympic Games do not take place in Lhasa. The Olympic Games take place in Beijing," he said.
"It is illogical to blame millions of Chinese."
Some Tibetan exile organisations have been calling for a boycott of the August games after an eruption of protests and rioting in Tibet and a tough Chinese crackdown.
The Tibetan government-in-exile says its confirmed death toll from clashes between Chinese authorities and Tibetan protesters has now risen to 99.
"Confirmed, we have cross-checked the various reports," government-in-exile spokesman Thubten Samphel said.
He says 19 Tibetans were killed in fresh protests on Tuesday.
Torch relay
Activists have sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) demanding the Himalayan region and three neighbouring provinces be withdrawn from the Olympic torch relay.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says the riots in the Himalayan region were incited with the aim of sabotaging the Games.
The torch relay, which starts next Monday when the Olympic flame is lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece, is scheduled to go to Tibet twice.
The International Tibet Support Network says it has sent a letter to the IOC demanding that the torch relay not go through Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces, all home to ethnic Tibetans.
"Unless the IOC wants the Olympic Torch to become a symbol of bloodshed and oppression, they must immediately withdraw all Tibetan provinces from the Olympic Torch relay route," a spokesperson said.
The torch relay schedule was drawn up by the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) before being given rubber-stamp approval by the IOC last year.
Resignation
The Dalai Lama has also offered to resign if the violence in Tibet spins out of control.
He has denied Chinese claims that he incited the riots, saying he only wants to see peaceful protests.
He says he is not pushing for Tibetan independence, insisting the people of China and Tibet can live side by side as citizens of the same country.
The Tibetan spiritual leader has challenged the Chinese government to produce evidence to support its claims.
"So this is, I think, your responsibility. Investigate," he said.
"Chinese telling me, Liar, Liar. So please, you investigate, who is liar?"
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