Mia Farrow's "Genocide Olympics"

"What the Chinese are doing is buying Sudan's oil."

And, er, up until now blocking UN sanctions and peacekeeping efforts.
Which was the point you decided to ignore.

"As such, calling the Beijing Games the "Genocide Olympics" is unforgivably irresponsible."

Unforgivable by whom?

Peacekeeping may have a mixed track record, but I'm not sure the people of Dafur will find her remarks "unforgivable". I'm also not sure how saying that China could help stop the slaughter in Dafur equals saying that China should be the world's policeman.

This is an oddly biased article from a usually fairly balanced site.

"This irresponsibility is compounded by the complete lack of American credibility on the issue of unsavory positions in the U.N."

Mia Farrow=US Government? I thought she was just a concerned citizen...

And "unforgivably irresponsible" sounds more like a quote from Xinhua, than a quote from Danwei....

And because the U.S. didn't listen to the U.N. that doesn't mean Farrow couldn't have disagreed.

you have to consider the primary current source of most of Sudan's weapons and ammunition--China. And paid for by the receipts of Chinese oil purchases. I think you are being a bit too defensive of China.

Is this how you feel, or are you in part trying to score points with the censors to give you more breathing room in other areas of your coverage?

maomao: The opinions expressed above are Ms Alexandri's own; the piece was not published to score points with any censor.

In any case, it is highly unlikely that China's Net Nanny would accept an article like this as a swap for something else naughty we publish.

Look what happened to Baidu.jp, and Baidu.com should have already earned more brownie points than Danwei can ever hope to accumulate.

You jump from laying into Mia Farrow, to talking about how indefensible this is due to US foreign policy. I'm echoing Jari here, but what's the connection? She's just an individual. And as a liberal activist American actress I'm not so sure that she's a big supporter of U.S. foreign policy.

I like the the way the Google ads below the article are displaying:

"Sudan Business
Comprehensive Intelligence Reliable, Timely and Accurate"

An unusually irresponsible article from Danwei which won't win many converts. Perhaps Danwei prefers Hunan TV over Mia's old Woody Allen films?

There is much happening with Darfur that is unforgivable. Calling out Beijing for protecting a genocidal regime is hardly one of them.

I'm surprised by the author's statement that "Chinese businesses aren't even collaborating — as IBM did with the Third Reich — or profiteering — as Swiss banks did during the Holocaust. What the Chinese are doing is buying Sudan's oil."

I think this overlooks the military cooperation and weapons sales between China and Sudan. As recently as April 3, the Associated Press reported that:

"Military relations between China and Sudan have developed smoothly," Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan was quoted as saying, adding "China is willing to further develop cooperation between the two militaries in every sphere."

link)

In light of these military ties, it is at least arguable that Beijing is indeed "uniquely positioned" to influence the situation in Sudan.

The author seems to suggest fear of China's use of its influence in Sudan to help ameliorate an ongoing genocide. But China's growing "international muscle" is already a reality. The world's response should not be to ignore this new development, but rather to encourage China to be more responsible in the world. (The U.S., of course, deserves the same encouragement---and many of those in the U.S. now asking for a change in China's policy toward Sudan are veterans of divestment and other activist campaigns directed at the U.S. government and other institutions.)

One thing to be clarified first is, the Chinese government is selfish, of course, like every other countries in the world. Don’t blame the Chinese government for wanting oil from Sudan, just like America wanting from the Middle East and africa. Don’t deny the fact that long history of exploiting natural resources in Africa by European countries or America abetted poverty, corruption, or civil wars in Africa.

However, the Chinese government does not just buy oil from Sudan, but also gains from construction projects in Sudan. Giving out food by the U.N. can not solve the problem of starving. Economy development is the ultimate solution for poverty. Growth of Economy heavily relies on good Infrastructure of the country. The Chinese government is the only country that helps infrastructure construction in Sudan.

There is no evidence that how much money the Chinese government purchases oil from Sudan with goes to the expense on weapons by the Sudan government. But the profits earned by the Chinese government from construction projects definitely regain some money spent on oil. If the Chinese government would purchase oil with contracts of construction projects, instead of paying in cash, it would benefit both countries and gives no reasons for biased criticism.

Those comments that accused danwei for “trying to score points with the censors to give you more breathing room in other areas of your coverage?” remind me of the cultural revolution in china in the 60s, during when as long as you speak for the capitalists, no matter how factual it is, you are the betrayer of the people.

Just like all biased western media against the Chinese government, those people can only see the negative side of China-Sudan relationship, but ignore the positive side.

I tend to agree with most of the posters above, how does Mia Farrow become the representative or lapdog of the US government?

Second is the fact that given the Chinese stance on the West's history in Africa it would be interesting to take a step back and reevaluate it's relationship with the continent. China is part of the new central Asian Great Game and many new misadventures in post cold-war imperialism in it's grab for the worlds resources.

The issue at hand and often overlooked is that Chinese actions at home and abroad are now starting to have effects that can be seen around the world. Climate change and pollution, central Asian water rights, and "goodwill diplomacy" are all having more and more effect in world affairs. Why should they not be held accountable?

The article above seems like something I would see on the very-biased CCTV show Dialogue where Chinese problems are never discussed in great detail while Western problems are scrutinized in great detail.

Danwei, you have had many new directions and new ideas since the beginning of your blog, but I think most of us have loved your blog not for it's biased editorials, but more for its balanced news and analysis.

im chinese:

Nobody denied that European colonialism was bad for Africa, you didn't need to bring that up.

Economic development is part of the solution to poverty. Another part is political stability and an end to war.
I'm sure nobody here would have a problem with China aiding the Sudanese government, if the Sudanese government wasn't responsible for a brutal civil conflict and genocide in Dafur. You don't really consider this. All those "biased" foreign comments about China and Sudan's relationship are based on knowledge of a conflict in Sudan the Chinese media never says anything about. Do you know why not?
Also what about what Jeff says: "Military relations between China and Sudan have developed smoothly," Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan was quoted as saying, adding "China is willing to further develop cooperation between the two militaries in every sphere."
China is not just building civilian infrastructure in Sudan.

Slightly OT BUT, to me, this is unforgivable (from today's SCMP online):

"Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang attacked Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's World Health Organisation membership bid, saying the island was simply "not eligible" to join." -Staff Reporter

Who the hell is China to say who is and is not "eligible" to try to contain disease and promote better health? Judging from China's track record of reporting outbreaks, they should just form their own little cozy "Health Organization of Countries Like Us" with charter members North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Myanmar, etc. (you get the drift).

But wait! It's been started! Last year in Shanghai, I recall...

Lets not forget who Maya Alexandri's employer is, none other than Tsinghua University. So the likelihood of her writing editorials bashing the Chinese government seems to be low.

Beijing insider: Ms Alexandri no longer works for Tsinghua University. Also, something that seems to have been lost on most of the commenters is that she was not so much defending the Chinese government as attacking Mia Farrow's method of getting what she wants.

I hardly think using the word "genocide" in relation to the ongoing going genocide in the Sudan, perpetrated with the help of Chinese-provded weapons, is particularly 'shameful'.

I'm no fan of Mia Farrow (she was rubbish in The Great Gatsby), but this reaction from Maya Alexandri to - of all things - a WSJ op-ed is seriously offbase. Let's look at what Farrow (and her other half) actually wrote, shall we?

First para: ""One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan."

Seems fair. If China is providing military support to the Sudanese government (and it is), it should be held accountable.

Ms Alexandri also intimates that Farrow coined the term "Genocide Olympics". She didn't. The main proponent of the term as a tagline seems to be Eric Reeves, and he in turn got the idea (as far as I can tell) from a Washington Post editorial back in December last year. Five minutes on Google, people, it's not that hard.

The original WP article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/13/AR2006121302008.html

I'm just curious, what exactly have the western liberals done to help Africa? How exactly have the western liberal improved the living conditions of the African people?

Following Karl's line of getting OT, I'm also curious to know that even with all the protests and publicities of the western liberal movements, why is it the two most powerful western countries, America and UK, still managed to defy the UN and pretty much the rest of the world, and went to war with Iraq?

I'm curious to know that why the western liberals feel that they have the rights to go around throwing mud on the face of whatever country they please, while at the same time, have been totally useless in stopping much worse atrocities committed by their own governments.

For all the rhetorics and grand ideas of the liberalism and democracy, why do we have the supposedly two most liberal and democratic countries in the world waging very unpopular wars against other countries?

Jeremy "Also, something that seems to have been lost on most of the commenters is that she was not so much defending the Chinese government as attacking Mia Farrow's method of getting what she wants."

I don't think this is lost on most of the commenters at all. Most of the comments, as I read them, complain that her attack on Mia Farrows is completely unjustified.

"ps": That line of argument might conceivably be relevant if anyone here didn't condemn the actions of the US and UK. Since no one has put forth such an opinion it does you no favours to assume they possess them. On a website about China, it's no surprise that people talk about China and not other countries.

Furthermore, are you seriously proposing that two wrongs make a right?

One could add that China also appears to be supplying arms to the Chadian side in the rising clashes in the rising level of border clashes in the Darfur region (between Chad based Darfur rebel groups, Chadian forces, the janjaweed and the official Sudanese military). Whether one wants to call this equal opportunities commercialism or whatever, I think Mia Farrow's quite entitled to put forward her point of view that this is makes the Chinese at least partially responsible. If the allegation didn't strike a chord internationally, the Chinese government could just ignore it.

"tom": you've totally missed my point. my criticism for the western liberals is relevant, because i find it hypocritical for them to try to change other countries when they cannot even change their own. if the western liberals really want to change the world, they have to start from their own countries which not only are the wealthiest and most powerful, but also the ones involved in most of the turmoils in the world for the past 100 years, if not more. i don't seem mia farrow going around the world asking people to boycott american businesses or high profile sporting events in america. despite of all the liberal protests in america and all around the western countries, the american and british armies are still in iraq and iraqies are still dieing by the dozens on a daily basis. for some reason, i've also seen lots of hollywood people going to iraq to boost the morals of the american troops, so has mia farrow asked people to boycott hollywood?

china is not the cause of the the civil wars in sudan. china is just protecting its own commercial interests -- like any other country would. china has been engaging in sudan, or any other countries on the africa continent for commercial purposes for around 10 years. the roots of the civil wars in africa go way back before that, so what exactly have the western countries done to help africa before china took a commercial interest in africa?

duncan: before you start accussing china of supplying weapons to other countries, if you just have a look at the big picture in global arms trade, you'd realize that china is just a small fish. according to wikipedia, in 2004, north america and europe combined to account for more than 90% of the global arms export. i'm not saying all the exported arms went to support dictatorships, but it would be totally biased for you to accuse china of supplying weapons to countries you don't like, while turning a blind eye to your own western countries. if you have such a big problem with arms trade, i suggest you start by protesting against the western countries.

now, onto the supposed "military cooperation" -- what does this mean? "military cooperation" can mean anything from military officers visiting each other, to personnel training and arms supply. i don't think the chinese gave any details on their cooperation with the sudan military, so pretty much whatever you claim is just baseless speculation, unless you have hard evidence. now, speaking of the personnel training, if i'm not mistaken, america trained a lot of people who they now regard as "terrorists" -- afghanistan taliban seem to ring a bell. did the american people actually agree with the training of the taliban and supplying them with anti-helicopter missles? if they did, what gives them the moral high ground to accuse china of having "military cooperation" with the sudanese government? if they didn't, where are the checks and balances that the democracy in america is supposed to provide?

i hope you see where i'm going with this. i don't know whether mia farrow's bid to boycott the chinese olympics is genuine, and i don't really care. but i do think that she has a lot more obligation to change her own country than she does to change china. it's hard for me to take any of the western liberal's protests against china seriously, when their countries dominate the headlines for the wrong reasons day in and day out.

two wrongs don't make it right, neither is not practicing what you preach.

Not to touch on the other issues raised, it struck me as odd to use BP as an example of a neutral actor in Africa. They've attracted their fair share of criticism too, and only really started cleaning up their act after coming under the kind of activist pressure that Ms Farrow is trying to apply here.

In Iraq and Sudan there is civil war killing thousands, their plight and names seen across the world.

In Nazi Germany thousands had numbers instead of names, and no nation demanded Hitler close his camps.

In 1962 the United Nations and Netherlands sold the West Papuan people to Indonesia; in September 1963 Indonesia declared West Papua was a “quarantine territory”; from 1966 Indonesia began aerial bombing of Arfak Mountain, Ayamaru and Teminabuan homelands.

In 2004 the Yale University Law School published its report “Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua:
Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control”.
Yet, no nation has called for Indonesia to stop its forty years of genocide, or close its Laskar Jihad and other Jihadist training camps.

So, ps's approach seems to be that if you can stop another country doing something bad but not your own, then you should let that other country continue doing something bad. Is it not better to do good where you can?

If you'd read the linked articles, and Reeves' literature, you'd have noticed, ps, that these Americans are also working on getting the US to broker a peace settlement in Darfur. I fear your accusations of hypocrisy on this one are ill-founded. But it's easy to sling mud from your armchair, I suppose.

You know, op-ed pieces aren't just for past-it celebrities and professional journalists. Why don't you write one of your own?

Oh, by the way, ps, don't take the quotation marks as a dig. I just added them because I wanted people to realise I was using your name instead of adding a postscript.

I am not impressed by Farrow at all. Pressuring Spielberg by comparing him to Leni Reifenstahl makes me sick.

And the fact that American activists think that their method of 'shaming' China into doing something will actually work is just another indication to me that very few people in the US really understand how relationships work in China. Not even the NY Times really seems to understand since they headlined their article "Darfur Collides With Olympics And China Yields."

I wouldn't call sending 1 guy to Darfur yielding. I don't think they really get the process of losing face, how it happens and what the Chinese response is to it.

And the quote that really is indicative that China won't be moved by Farrow's tactics or anything similar -
"If someone wants to pin Olympic Games and Darfur issue together to raise his/her fame, he/she is playing a futile trick," the spokesman, Chu Maoming, wrote."

Jenn -
you can't always assume that because a Chinese spokesman says something, then it must be true.
And besides, whether Farrow's tactics do or don't work is not the question. The question is was she right to give them a try.
ps -
Nobody ever said Western liberals would save the world. (I'm a liberal-minded Western, and I'm not going to save the world any time soon)
The very important question that everyone who criticizes Farrow must ask themselves is: Does it matter if self-interest is the only consideration in any nation's foreign policy, when self-interest can be opposed to humanitarian concerns?
If it does matter, why is it wrong for people like us to use peaceful means to make politicians consider ethical issues?

Mia may have stretched it a bit but not much. You, on the other hand stretch China's innocence quite a bit. China, almost alone in the world, has been protecting Sudan and its genocide in Darfur and therefore perpetuating a genocide. In fact, China and Russia together are dismantling a global effort to hold governments accountable for human rights records in their own countries. China deserves the criticism it is getting.

And to compare recent US mistakes to China's unblemished record of human rights abuses is just absurd.

Btw, the op-ed can be read in full for free at www.miafarrow.org

Yeah don't let the Chinese government get a free pass on this yo.

But it's not like the U.S has any credit either.

I thought the U.S. was doing nothing in Sudan because they had no oil
Now I get it... they have oil... only it is their "most favored nation" and trading partner that is buying it.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
The Superpowers (and the not so superpowers) all need to clean up their acts.
The whole world is watching now.

"tom", my approach is to clean up my own house before yelling at other people to clean up theirs. my doubt over farrow's actions is exactly the same as many people's doubts over Angelina Jolie's decisions to adopt some poor asian kids -- are there no poor american kids that she could have helped? you may see farrow's act as noble, but i just keep noticing all the other bad things of which she has more obligations to take care, but chooses to ignore.

you and other western liberals can act as noble as you wish, i'm not a mind reader and i don't know what your motives are. but all i see is that the two most liberal and democratic western countries are waging unjust wars against other countries despite the objection from pretty much everyone else, and committing some of the worst human rights violations. as long as your own countries are publicly doing the things that you don't want other countries to do, whatever you say will sound very hollow to me.

if you want to make the world a better place, you should start from yourself and your own home.

Noble sentiments, ps, however I can't see that it matters here. Mia Farrow arguably succeeded in getting something good to happen. (Just because the NYT gives her the credit doesn't mean China wasn't going to do something anyway, to be fair.)

If you can do one thing and can't do another, why not do the thing you can do? Yes, you're right that the US and UK are in no position as nations to talk about illegal wars. But a) this is one private individual, not a government spoeksperson b) she was talking about arms dealing and inaction, not waging war and c) as a UNICEF ambassador this is precisely the sort of thing the UN (of which China is a part) wants her to do.

Can't we just be happy that in one thing a UNICEF celebrity ambassador has finally achieved something? This is a lot better than an ex Spice Girl giving a press conference pointing out that famine is bad.

Also, please stop putting my name in quotation marks. It's annoying.

Seeing China's role in permitting the ongoing genocide in Darfur is easy. All they had to do was send Zhai Jun in for one day of negotiations to make it happen. They've known this from the beginning.

What's the difference between causing genocide and not doing anything to stop it when the solution is so simple? IMO China's complicit in this case.

link

wow, thought I had clicked on china daily by mistake. very odd editorial choice from Danwei. No point in criticising the original piece as its weakness of argument is too obvious, but out of interest, where did it come from? Was it written exclusively for Danwei or was it sourced from somewhere else?

If the former, then an even stranger editorial decision as Danwei very rarely has guest writers and when it does, they are usually responsible for something a little more interesting and thought provoking than this poorly put together opinion piece.

or has this maya character done a Ken Carroll and been passing the red envelopes around Danwei towers? (insert winking face here)

farrow probably succeeded in a blackmail and smear campaign against china, but i find it hard to call it good. farrow, like all the other western liberals, have far more power and obligations to fix the problems of their own countries first. after all, they are the citizens of their own countries, a lot of them are extremely rich and influential among their own people, i find it difficult to accept your excuse that these people somehow cannot fix the problems in their own country but can pressure china -- this is similar to bullying.

like i said before, america and europe are much bigger players than china when it comes to arms export, so if farrow had such huge objections against arms trading, she should start with her own country.

similarly, america and europe have been engaging in africa for far longer than china has, if farrow has such a big problem with china's inactions, what does she have to say to america's own inactions?

i'm not happy with the way farrow got what she wanted, and i don't think her blackmails and smear campaign against china will ultimately achieve long lasting peace for sudan.

ps:
I'm sure Farrow is critical of America, but this article is about her criticism of China, it wouldn't be relevant to report what she has to say about the Iraq war.

Can you answer these simple questions: Is it right for any government to protect a genocidal regime from international action? Is it right for any government to have military ties with a country whose military is commiting terrible acts of slaughter? (The US has got plently of criticism in the past for doing these things, including criticism from Chinese people.)

If your answer is 'no', then Farrow calling the Olympics "the Genocide olympics" is surely the lesser of two crimes.
If you don't answer, I will assume you can't answer.

if china are next up to become the world's police, that track was laid a long time ago -- it's not going to be precipitated or deterred by any single statement, no matter how strongly worded, from mia farrow, irrespective of cause.

frankly, i can't think of any POLITE way to make the point ms farrow made. her language was strong because the issue is urgent. and, i feel, she is right.

if one wants to point out the need for CONSISTENCY in policy and perspective, as an american and as a global citizen i can only heartily agree. it's easy to pick and choose on the issues -- and in some circles, it's terribly fashionable to pick on china.

i think ms alexandri was cautioning against undue smugness, and the winning of easy international political points against china. and i can only agree with that as well.

we must all look to our own backyards, although i don't think that ms farrow has particularly failed to do so.

Farrow's letter reminds the world that we are acting on an international level and not a humanitarian level; with a continent full of uranium, oil and gems it is hard to say that officials are fighting for Africans...

I have been studying the situation in Sudan quite extensively along with the opportunity to converse with a Philosphy Professor from Cameroon. We both have come to an agreement that Mia Farrow's argument and the media's responses are sensational and selective.

Sudan's major export is OIL (sound familiar?), and the south is the land that has it...if the south gets independence from the north, the north is left with desert, desert and more desert. Of course this should be a situation to resolve, but calming sensational media and reporting news instead of making it is also on the priority list.

I offer you Stuart Hall's research on humanitarianism

Stuart Hall wasn't much of a humanitarian when he was hosting It's a Knockout was he? Always laughing at those silly Belgians trying to roller skate on ice.

(I know, I know)

I come late to the fray here, but this was a really bizarre little article. To say that the responsibility for the Darfur massacres must rest squarely on the Sudanese government is the kind of cynical dodge one expects to hear coming from the mouth of government spokespeople, not independent commentators or journalists. It's a way of denying any responsibility for one's own complicity in acts of evil. And it's rather unpleasant to say that the relationship of China's government to that of Sudan should be viewed as analogous to that of BP to same. Governments have responsibilities which businesses do not; I don't think Ms. Alexandri would look forward to being governed by the CEO of BP (though sometimes our world looks all too close to such a model, these days).

There is, to be sure, a sinophobic streak in Western media and activist circles. But that doesn't mean that one ought to lash out at anyone who criticizes the Chinese government for any reason. Once you start behaving that way, you have become a useful idiot. China's diplomatic efforts to shield the Sudanese government from the consequences of its genocidal actions in Darfur are clear enough; they're playing the role the Russians played for the Serbs in Bosnia. The "Genocide Olympics" campaign is an effort to make it clear that China, being an important country on the world stage, must expect people to start responding seriously to its foreign policy actions. China is a big country; it can take care of itself, it can decide what it needs to do to address this campaign, it has shown it is perfectly capable of reshaping its diplomatic posture to fit new realities (as it did by sending a senior official to Sudan to criticize the gov't recently, earning plaudits from Western human-rights activists), and it doesn't need Maya Alexandri to protect it from big, bad Mia Farrow.

I agree with odadrek regarding the comments of ps. It appears that odadrek was right that since ps has not responded to odadrek's questions, then ps is unable to FREELY answer that it is wrong for a government to protect a genocidal regime from international actions and that it is wrong for a government to have military ties with a country that is slaughtering its own people.

Perhaps ps would prefer we call it the Tiananmen Square Olympics?

Mia Farrow is purely interested in stopping the genocide--yes, genocide--in Darfur. That she would hold the Chinese government responsible for bankrolling ethnic cleansing is absolutely appropriate. China is complicit, and they must be held accountable. Using their Olympics as leverage is brilliant.

And it's turning a blind eye that's inappropriate--and I'm being kind.

i love all this. china is supposed to solve the darfur problem by destroying the dreams and asperations of a country that has been bloodied by 60 years of western boycotts and vilification (oh, and PLEASE don't use the word "communist" in response). we're still thinking that 1.3 billion people don't count as anything more than a number: 1.3. interjecting 'genocide' into this is mccarthyism all over. americans never learn. please invade iran, too, and never learn some more. that this little miss, who couldn't manage a family where her husband stuck his hand into the panties of her daughter should dictate "good will" is beyond me.

there are sh*tloads of issues that china has a problem with, among which buying oil from the sudan to raise the level of it's people's standard of living is NOT one. mia, why not address the f**cking issues that are relevant to china and leave the olympics alone? er, like the abduction of women, abuse of women in the countryside, shoddy health care system, ... ad infinitem. trashing the olympics is just not the way to go about "good will". totally unfathomable to me.

This is a well balanced reporting.

Mia Farrow already mastered US way of media pressure and manipulation. She should act as impartial US ambassador rather than spokeswoman for US establishment.

Is it possible that she also comment on Iraqi children and put pressure on the US?

There is more truth in Mia Farrow'w words than you may think in that this is a genocide olympics not just in Sudan but in China itself. How many Tibetans and Fаlun Gong practitioners and Christians and so many others have been tortured and killed since the Communist party came to power in China? The estimates are 60 to 80 million Chinese people have died unnaturally and it is still going on right now right up to the Beiging genocide olympics, not to mention organ harvesting and sale of organs from living or freshly killed prisoners or Fаlun Gong practitioners for large profits.

I suggest that large US corporations, participating countries, athletes, olympic visitors and all human beings that stand for human rights and dignity and democracy seriously consider boycotting these olympics unless China stops its genocide of its people and violation of human rights.

I also request Mia Farrow and Mr. Steven Spielberg support in bringing integrity to these Beijing olympics and stopping the genocide in China.

Thank you

Well
Gerry,I think you are a little bit over exaggeration about the things happened in China. Actually I am a student in china,our lifes are less controlled by gov than you expected,and as my observation,the humanright in china is no longer that of 1970s,the situation is changing and generally becoming better.
You have to understand that the social status in china is quite different from that of North Korea.
About FаLunGong,come on ,just see how many property he(LiHοngZhi) have in abroad and most of them are won by cheating and lies.

I would be shameful if china have played a bad role in the issue of Darfur.But I think it's farfetched to connect this to olympic.I can hardly believe that the americans would accept we called the NBA final as "Invader Final" in 2003,would they?

The US, England and the rest of Europe are the death merchants in the world. The genocide in Iraq perpetated by England and America demonstrates the the beast that are those countries; such countries ought to be disarmed and the criminal leadership arraigned convicted and sentenced accordingly.

The conflict in Darfur Sudan is being trumped up with the aid of media persons, TV persons and other beneficiaries of parasitic capitalism to wit the expropriation of Sudanese oil and other strategic interest. Criminal Bush and the US wants another Iraq in Sudan, wholly unrepentant of apartheid then later Iraq, world domination for them and untold misery for the third world are their goals.

Criminals are in charge in the US and Europe. From the holocust to slavery to apartheid to colonialism to untold misery mass murder and plunder, for the perpetrators it is the same day, tommorow is yet.

America must and will be stopped and all cost because the world will not survive. It is our responsibility to end the madness.

time for an update rant from maya, i think, now that spielberg has yielded to mia farrow's criticism.

I can't speak for Maya, but in the meantime, you might find this response on the Zhongnanhai blog to your liking.

The most concise reason that fella says in his blog comes from a previous post when he says,

"Sure, China's got a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It's got nuclear weapons. It's got the Olympics in a few months. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to what's most important in US politics, which is almost always the economy, it's time to realize - if China hasn't already - that politically speaking, it still isn't making big waves."---PAUL

Unlike the 1980 and 1936 Olympics there is nothing that make sense for any real political statement to occur simply because the economic ramifications of doing such a thing would be disastrous. This shouldn't hurt Spielberg's bottom-line as he has most likely never received royalties for all the DVDs he has sold in the PRC. However, if the US were to collectively do something along the lines of a boycott it would not only do nothing politically BUT would probably hurt the US economically due to the PRC retaliatory means and the direct impact of the broadcaster losing money from lack of interest. However, no one outside of those directly related to the Olympics give a sh*t anymore in the States. The sports overall are boring and of little interest to us. We could care less about diving, or badminton---which is arguably not a sport.

Hey WTF - Mia Farrow should definitely consider other causes to focus on in addition to Darfur because the sh*t happens all over the globe. Although I can't blame her for focusing on Darfur, I think her pressuring Spielberg to drop out of China is more unfair to Spielberg than it is to China. The China Olympic Opening Ceremony will be a "visual feast" of which a man with Spielberg's love of such things can only be savored with the naked eyes. Well, I guess he can watch the film, now - thanks to Mia.

China may be responsible for human rights issues within its borders, but linking China to Darfur's problems is, if there is a right word for it, wrongful and unjustifiable.

Unlike the U-know-who, China minds it's own business, and does'nt nag other countries how to run their business.