Paradigm Shifted

Ignoring the fact that I don’t tend to watch the Olympics anyway (except for a few moments, it bores me), I am not watching them this year in protest of Beijing.

I think the IOC made a mistake in allowing them to host, for a number of reasons. Granted, these reasons are not limited to China, but transparency in other countries means some effort is made to reduce the problems. But not in China. While the rest of the world “sets it aside”, China continues to bulldoze over environmental sustainability, public health, and human rights.

First, there’s Darfur, where Chinese interests in petrochemicals trumps lives. And we sit and watch, because a booming Chinese economy benefits us. “Never again”, we’ve now said about half a dozen times. I guess we mean, “never again… after the next time.”

Then there’s the Three Gorges Dam. “Resettlement” is a fancy way of saying “we’ll just look in the other direction while you lose your home”. And the lack of regulation for industry, which leaks toxic chemicals into the water supply, poisoning hundreds of Chinese a year. And the horrific pollution from inefficient coal burning that clouds the skies over major cities, and sweeps into the Pacific basin, reducing agricultural outputs in Korea and Japan. But these lives are just collateral. The dragon is taking flight.

And then there’s restricted internet, Tiananmen, forced sterilization, Tibet, organ harvesting… All issues we implicitly condone through our silence and our support of Chinese economic growth.