Athletes shouldn't be our China policy
Should our athletes boycott this year's Beijing Olympics? Nick Cohens in a reasonably interesting article says yes.I don't know whether he is appealing to individual athletes or to the Government to impose something, but in both cases I am more persuaded by the objections he lists in his final paragraph, which basically are that in the absence of any economic or financial sanctions, I think tellin, or even expecting, athletes to boycott the Olympic Games is rather unfair [1]- putting all of the onus on them rather than us.
There doesn't seem to be enormous pressure on anyone else in the country to make the slightest effort or suffer the slightest cost in their relations with China, or must desire to do so either. All of us interact with or benefit from China via various forms of trade, e.g. buying a flat screen TV or microwave (I'm writing this on a computer made in China), getting cheap new clothes, visiting the Great Wall, having an account at Morgan Stanley, etc. All of these are reliant on the Chinese government to some degree or another, and all of them can be reduced at a relatively small cost.
For athletes this is not really the case - the Olympics is the pinancle of many athletes' careers, and only comes around ever four years, so it's not like they will get many chances at performing in it. Furthermore it's not the athletes fault that it is in Beijing.
One might argue that the Olympics is linked to the government and the government's prestige, but so are the major industries and state investment funds.
It's not that I don't believe in sporting boycotts per se, but surely they must be an addition to economic and financial boycotts [2], not as something done instead? If the government can lead trade missions to China, the public buy masses of cheap imports, and investment banks - with large operations in the UK, if not actually British owned - receive cash injections, why can't or even shouldn't an athlete perform at the Beijing Olympics? [3]
[1] It's of course possible that Nick Cohen might have reduced his expenditure on China-linked goods and services to a bare minimum, which would certainly give him the right to demand similar actions of others.
[2] I don't think we should impose financial or economic sanctions on China as a country.
[3] There is also the question of how much they would care if it was limited to us, but I'm not sure that is the main point of such a boycott.
posted by Matthew @ 2/18/2008 09:07:00 PM
Comments: 1
