Regime Watch: Beijing

Jacques Rogge, the chief of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), wants the west to be patient over China’s thuggery. From Saturday’s Financial Times:

Mr Rogge says while he understands the depth of emotion in the west on China’s human rights record, public expectations about the country’s pace of change are unrealistic.

Noting that the People’s Republic of China has only been around since 1949, Mr. Rogge goes on to compare contemporary China to past colonial powers:

Back in 1949, Mr Rogge pointed out, the UK was a colonial power. So too were Belgium, France and Portugal, “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest”.

China may not be a role model in the west, Mr Rogge concedes, but “we owe China to give them time”.

Granted, Mr. Rogge was not the IOC president at the time China was granted the 2008 Olympics, but the IOC awarded the Games to Beijing with full knowledge of China’s atrocious human rights record, so now the IOC gets to reap what it sowed.

But as long as Mr. Rogge wants to tell the rest of us what China is “owed,” perhaps he could also tell us all how much longer the people of places like Tibet and Inner Mongolia should be expected to exist under the boot heel of Beijing, or how much longer the Taiwanese should be expected to live with Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at them from across the Taiwan Strait.