Aug
8
Nick Gillespie at Reason on why it’s good that President Bush is in Beijing
Filed Under China, Olympics | Leave a Comment
Prior to the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, I posted about why President Bush should not attend the games, such as this argument from the Heritage Foundation. But as long as Mr. Bush is in Beijing, here is an excerpt from a compelling and witty argument by Nick Gillespie at Reason Magazine (disclosure: Nick has been good enough to publish my work in the past) as to why Bush attending the Olympics is a good thing:
But the most interesting performance of this games may have already taken place a couple of days ago, starting in Thailand of all places. That’s when President George W. Bush actually sounded presidential for a change and made an unambiguous statement about human rights and China:
“We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China’s leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential….We press for openness and justice, not to impose our beliefs but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs….
“The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings.”
A Chinese spokesman responded with a courteous screw-you: “We firmly oppose any words or acts that interfere in other countries internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues.” At the opening of the new U.S. embassy in China, Bush reiterated his theme of freedom and engagement: “We strongly believe societies which allow the free expression of ideas tend to be the most prosperous and the most peaceful.”
If you care about civil liberties, foreign policy, government spending, expansions in executive power, Social Security reform, traditional African dancing, or you name it, Bush’s presidency has been the sort of ongoing disaster-cum-embarrassment that the baseball team he used to own, the Texas Rangers, faces on an annual basis. And there is plenty to criticize in terms of Bush’s current appearance in China. Not his going to the opening ceremonies of the Games in the first place, but his failure to meet openly with Chinese dissidents or directly address a nation-wide audience in China.
Despite the high-flying rhetoric of athletic competition, the modern Olympics, restarted in 1896, were conceived of as a political act—a way for the French to avenge on the playing field their battlefield defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (it’s one reason why participants compete as part of national teams rather than as individuals). True to this origin, the Olympics have always provided a stage for world politics, both official and unofficial, well-intentioned and murderous. Hence the grotesque displays of Nazism in 1936, the student protests in ‘68, the terrorist atrocities of ‘72, Eric Rudolph’s bombings in ‘96, and various boycotts, such as President Jimmy Carter’s withdrawal of the United States team from the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Carter’s boycott, done in the name of human rights, accomplished absolutely nothing. I’m willing to say that Bush is a worse president than Carter (who at least deregulated airline ticket pricing and interstate trucking, and invited Willie Nelson to the White House), but it’s Bush who has gotten it right when it comes to superpower-charged Olympics.
To have Bush out there, saying what he’s saying where he’s saying it—and pursuing a larger policy of engagement via trade and other forms of exchange—is absolutely the best way to pull China into something approaching Western-style democracy, complete with robust individual rights and the sort of economy that will ultimately force governments to loosen up. Milton Friedman famously said that as people get richer, they demand the ability to live however they want—that economic freedom, which increases prosperity, helps create the conditions for political freedom. It seems clear that the Chinese government, like all governments, doesn’t want to yield power if it can avoid doing so. It’s also clear that the more a country trades with the world—for goods, services, and even cultural identities—the less its government can control its people. Here’s hoping that the Beijing Olympics, regardless of the predictable and bizarre repressions going on right now to ensure a “stain-free” event, push that process along.