As you may or may not know, President George W. Bush is currently in Sydney, Australia for the annual APEC conference. Well, the other day, Bush accepted an invitation from Chinese President Hu Jintao to attend the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, as report in The New York Times’ article: “Bush, After Talks With China’s Leader, Accepts Invitation to Beijing Olympics“:
“The decision was announced while most Americans were still asleep. But by the time Mr. Bush delivered his speech, human rights advocates were accusing him of giving his imprimatur to a country that is jailing dissidents, denying
religious freedom and, in their view, not exerting its influence as a major buyer of Sudanese oil to stop what Mr. Bush himself has termed genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. Back in Washington, a Republican congressman, Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, said in a telephone interview that he and eight other Republicans would press a resolution calling for the United States to boycott the Games.”
Personally, despite China’s human rights issues (not even elaborating on their stance on Taiwan….), I think it is better that the United States actively engage China on all fronts. Having attended the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I truly do believe that the “Olympic” spirit should transcend the differences nations hold against each other. The U.S.-China relationship *will be* one of the defining relationships in this century. I’m very interested in attending the 2008 Beijing as well, but worried about how expensive it might be to attend….
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Chook wrote:
In light of the recent economic tiffs and anti-China rhetoric throughout the media, I truly thought that the U.S would withdraw it’s athletes from the Beijing games. I’m always struck by the double standard inherent in the morally superior stance taken by some politicians in the U.S. How can a culture that dehumanizes Asians, demeans their mannerisms and customs, ridicules and belittles their contributions to this and world civilization, and often turns a blind eye to the violence and discrimination reaped by these attitudes, then turn around and claim to be concerned about the “rights” and “dignity” of the Chinese? Why the concern for oppressed Asians overseas when this society does everything it can to marginalize and demonize Asians in the States? Unfortunately, any dialogue between East and West will be filtered by racial stereotyping and fear from both sides. Whereas China keeps it’s people in ignorance in order to more easily control them, the West is supposed to be a society of free flowing information. This being the case, there is no excuse for Western ignorance when it comes to being better able to understand the East. The fact is that in the West, stereotyping of Asians is a choice and it seems as though the West chooses to negatively stereotype Asians. Why is it important to understand this? Because no Asian can be free anywhere until Asians are free everywhere.
Posted on 08-Sep-07 at 4:55 am | Permalink
John wrote:
Chook, I don’t think the U.S. (as in government and popular culture) is soley morally superior to Asians and only demonizes Asians. How about Arab/Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, etc. Actually, with so much exposure to West by the Chinese, I don’t think can be filtered these days in China (though I will agree China is not a “free” country) - China is no North Korea. “Because no Asian can be free anywhere until Asians are free everywhere.” - not sure where you are going with this nor what kind of solution you are thinking of.
Posted on 08-Sep-07 at 7:06 am | Permalink
Chook wrote:
The spirit of my comment was philosophical in nature. Can we truly trust our society to genuinely care what happens to oppressed Asians in totalitarian countries when Asians in this society are marginalized and mistrusted as outsiders? How can the marginalisation and mistrust of our community here, lead to compassion for our cousins in China? The spirit of oppression has no no clear boundary. A Korean store owner in L.A who is repeatedly robbed and harrassed because of his ethnicity is oppressed. A campaigner for human rights in Burma who is jailed and beaten is oppressed. A Filipino-American girl who is attacked and spat at on a public bus in New York is being oppressed. Any 6 year-old Asian-American, who is harrassed, bullied and beaten by white kids who are encouraged by watching Rosie O’Donnell’s “ching-chong” skit, is being oppressed. In essence, we have to recognize our solidarity and commonality with oppressed Asians overseas. The degree and face of opression may vary, but it’s still oppresion. How ironic it would be if the U.S used it’s economic, political and military influence to bring dignity and freedom to the oppressed of China whilst we in the U.S continued our lives as mistrusted and marginalized outsiders.
Posted on 08-Sep-07 at 3:24 pm | Permalink