China: Sarkozy Not Welcome at Olympics

Politics International Politics
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[quote]China: Sarkozy Not Welcome at Olympics
By Chris Buckley, July 3, 2008

BEIJING (Reuters) - China made a barely veiled swipe at French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday and state media warned he can expect a cold public shoulder if he attends the Beijing Olympics after he threatened not to go over Tibet.

Sarkozy has said he will decide next week whether to attend the opening of the Games in August, with his choice depending on how talks go between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s envoys.

China often lashes out at foreign leaders for meeting the exiled Dalai Lama or criticizing its policies in Tibet, which it calls an internal affair.

In a sign of growing rancor in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman and official newspapers took swipes at Sarkozy, whose government assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union on Tuesday.

“The Olympic Games should not be politicized and that spirit should be respected by all the members of the Olympic family,” the spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.

“We absolutely will not accept any politicization of the Olympic Games, or linking the Olympics to political issues. Any attempts to meddle in China’s internal affairs will fail.”

Liu refused to directly say whether his comments were aimed at Sarkozy. But he said they were intended to “clarify” remarks he made on Tuesday, which were in answer to a question about the French president.

Official Chinese media were even blunter.

“Chinese people do not want French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics,” the China Daily said, citing an Internet survey by Sina.com.cn, a popular local website.

France has been a focus of Chinese nationalist anger after protesters disrupted the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay in April, decrying Beijing’s policies in Tibet. Many Chinese urged a boycott of French goods and picketed outlets of the French supermarket chain Carrefour.

Sarkozy has said that he believes in dialogue with China and that it would be counter-productive to offend Beijing.

But the upwelling of angry comment in the Chinese press suggested the French president faces a hostile audience.

The Internet “survey” that collected over 100,000 responses found that 88 percent thought Sarkozy’s comments were “extremely unfriendly,” while a similar number said they would not welcome his attending the opening ceremony, the report said.

“The stance of Chinese Internet users is even more direct – it’s not ‘Come if you want,’ it’s basically 'You’re not welcome,” said the China Youth Daily.

Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Alex Richardson[/quote]

Its the whipped dog that yelps the loudest.

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“We absolutely will not accept any politicization of the Olympic Games, or linking the Olympics to political issues. Any attempts to meddle in China’s internal affairs will fail.”

Official Chinese media were even blunter.

“Chinese people do not want French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics,” the China Daily said.

Typical behavior out of China. We got the games, now we’ll make the rules, and we’ll try to keep out any persons whom we don’t want in.

This childish, “cultural” notion of embarrassment – or ‘face,’ whatever silly label you want to give it – is what will keep the world laughing at this backwater of a country.

tnr.com/booksarts/story.html … e7964e5909

There’s nothing new in that linked piece, but it’s interesting reading nonetheless.

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rather funny after the IOC sent a very blunt letter to the beijing olympics organising committee and told THEM to stop politicising the olympics.

i wonder if they see the irony?

actually, of course they do. this is just their way of saying Fuck You to the rest of the world for ‘interfering’ in an ‘internal affair’. and also saying ‘Non-one tells US what to do, because we’re SPECIAL. our mummy, Mao, told us so’.

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I’m sure people know that as an official policy, China doesn’t interfer in other countries internal affairs. And at the same time China also doesn’t take kindly when other country interfers in its internal affairs. As such China’s responses are purely reactionary.

Afterall lots of people are protesting against China, is it not okay for China to counter-protest?

If the west is going to make it its typical behavior to criticize Beijing’s policy, disrupt the torch, and urge boycott of the Games-in short, politicize the Olympics- don’t be too surprised if some of that vile comes back their way.

Something about for every action there’s going to be an equal and opposite reaction.

I’ll try to put this in the simplest term possible. If you say “Fuck you China”, you’ll soon get “Fuck you too”

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very (mainland) chinese behaviour. in business, they do the exact same thing. first it is a big yes, they agree with everything. then they work their way back and bargain back every single thing they agreed upon!!!

during the tibet protests in paris, why was chinese “police” there? why were they directing the operations and give orders to local police? isnt that interfering with french internal affairs?

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Good to see Sarkozy moving back from Chirac’s arse-licking of China. Mitterrand was pro-Taiwan, and it’s good to see Sarkozy standing up against China (although suprising coming from a Gaullist). I had nothing but praise for Socialist Mitterrand. He decimated the Communist Party in France (after bringing them into his coalition then destroying them), was able to destroy Chirac in debate, and stood up for smaller countries (e.g. Taiwan etc.).

J.

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[quote]Good to see Sarkozy moving back from Chirac’s arse-licking of China. Mitterrand was pro-Taiwan, and it’s good to see Sarkozy standing up against China (although suprising coming from a Gaullist).
[/quote]
gotta agree!

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we do know this, ABC. we also can see that it is partly China’s way of legitimizing (in its own eyes) its own nefarious deeds, and those of many of its allies, the outer circle of rogue states like Burma, Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc. in generating a policy of non-interference, they’re simply attempting to deflect criticism, sometimes unwarranted but usually more than necessary, of their internal policy failings.

it is also partly a way of stifling internal criticism of the regime, as well as foreign criticism. if there is no media comment about something, it “didn’t happen”. that is why a free media and free speech are important, and are sorely lacking in that cosy state of “Communism with Chinese characteristics” you call home. keep the news from getting out, about anything, and you keep the people in the mindnumbed state that makes them easier to control. feed them the right kind of news and you’ll have a whole nation of sycophantic nationalists, targeted to the exact end you want.

unfortunately the program isn’t totally effective, and the internet has you running scared, even though it also offers equally tremendous potential (thanks to Cisco and Microsoft) for catching those evil anti-Chinese posters who abuse the technology to spread malicious rumours about this and that. you still feel the need to maintain the worlds largest secret police service, don’t you?

the same policy of not interfering with a country’s internal affairs because that then helps you get away with vileness, abuse and evil in your own country is the reason that Zimbabwe is the current basket-case that it is. african countries, many of them increasingly closer allies of China (and more pity them in the long run, for they are being raped worse than by the British and French) have for a long time refused to criticise Zimbabwe’s ruling clique because they would not like the harsh light of the resultant examination turned on them too.

and as far as politicising the Games goes, the entire torch relay (and what a delightful debacle that was) was a propaganda exercise, political from go to whoa. and any time that China attempts to deflect criticism or concern or comment about anything it does now, in the same speech as mentioning the Games, is political. the best thing now is to never mention the word Olympic and China in the same breath. It looks like you also need reminding that an Olympics Games are awarded to a CITY, not to a COUNTRY. there is no place for fervent rabid nationalism there, but unfortunately that’s all you Chinese types have to offer, isn’t it, having been raised on nothing but the bile of human kindness from your mamma’s teat to the grave.

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China/PRC?PLA have played, and are continuing to play, a pre-emptive media strike campaign from the beginning.

Criticize those who might level criticism at PRC/PLA policies and actions before they might do so. Thus seeming to gain the upper hand media wise. And putting any response or comment on those topics into a seeming ‘reactionary’ ‘see we knew you were going to do this’ frame. Sort of a self-fulfilling destiny kind of thing.
Create an adversary so you’ll have something to give legitimacy to the attacks you were going to make anyway.

The fact that China/PRC/PLA has such a deplorable human rights record only makes this more surreal.

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Is anyone from the US in any position to critise PRC human rights issues?

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Doesn’t the US have a few Chinese Muslims they been torturing on PRC behalf?

I figure we should be happy the PRC is willing to stick it to France, God knows they been screwing the US over in Middle East.

These are the veiws of an average American.

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[quote=“urodacus”]
we do know this, ABC. we also can see that it is partly China’s way of legitimizing (in its own eyes) its own nefarious deeds, and those of many of its allies, the outer circle of rogue states like Burma, Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc. in generating a policy of non-interference, they’re simply attempting to deflect criticism, sometimes unwarranted but usually more than necessary, of their internal policy failings… [/quote]

Frankly, I don’t think China is all that concerned about criticism. Far from being stifled, other countries can and have always reported on whatever they wanted. As such, China gets criticized all the time on a wide range of issues- human rights, environment, foreign policy, etc, and it’s not every time China rebukes by saying it’s our internal matter, or at all. It’s only when other countries take concrete actions to harm China’s interests, such as meeting the Dailai Lama, or advocate an Olympic boycott, are there pointed responses produced by the Chinese government, as I’m sure other countries would have done the same thing in similar situations.

As for the torch relay being a propaganda excercise, what exactly is the message China supposedly try to convey? There is none. China holds a torch relay just like every other Olympic hosts had their own torch relay. Even if I go as far as to say that maybe there is some political benefits to be gained there(and I can’t imagine what that is), that’s a perk that comes with getting to host the Games. Or are you saying that China should not have held a torch relay as to not appear to politicize it?

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J, I’ll give that quote a very rare Dragonbones’s seal of approval:

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Ah China, the rise of the great middle finger.

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I’m glad AC is (no doubt erroneously) calling himself an average American (or purporting to be able to express their views) right now instead of an average Taiwanese, as I’m sure the average Taiwanese, while not necessarily loving Sarkozy, would be happy that he is willing to be tough on China. After all, EU arms sales to China would not be in Taiwan’s best interests at the moment.

Strange though, that the “average Taiwanese” (actually the weirdest Taiwanese guy I’ve ever communicated with) would profess to express the views of the average American. Kind of negates the validity of either claim, I would think. The average Taiwanese cannot by definition be the average American, nor would claim to be so.

I agree with some of the other posters that China is too sensitive about criticism. But, whaddaya gonna do? I mean, there’s the whole face thing and then there’s the very real fragility of wanting to be respected on the world stage but being terrified of some kind of disaster. I say, this is China’s prom night and let it enjoy itself. Then, the west can get back to Tibet, Xinjiang and other issues with some kind of information campaign that can pay off over the next decade. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: provoking the Chinese people with criticisms that they don’t really understand, just because it feels good (or gets votes) is not an effective policy. By all means criticize, but don’t make the Chinese feel that the West is their enemy.

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Well GW Bush defended his opportunity to go to the Olympics for fears of affronting the Chinese which would negatively impact future dialogues with China.

There is no way France is a prestigious as the USA when it comes to world affairs. So it is okay that they stay home and eat freedom fries with a side of tears.

These are the views of the average American.

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France is also by no means prestigious as Japan when it comes to arousing true Chinese passionate sentiments. France is not a despised opponent like Japan. Nor is France an Olympic heavyweight like US, China, or Russia.

In other words, Beijing doesn’t care what France thinks. They don’t arouse Chinese national enthusiasm as much as the US or Japan does.

If I was Beijing willing to showcase its athletic prowess or patriotic spirit against another country, I would rather face a worthy opponent like the US or a historical opponent like Japan, than be concerned about a French president not attending the ceremony.

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That may make sense in the short term, but pissing off the French isn’t going to do anything positive for China in the long term. France is a permanent security council member that can veto any strategic UN action. It’s also an infuential EU member, with the power to extend the arms sales ban from EU nations to China. I disagree that the Chinese don’t care about the French. I think they are just trying to shake an apology out of him, or at the very least get him to say that the talks with the DL reps are going well enough, so that there won’t be any ugly booing of French athletes or anti Carrefour demos during the games themselves. That would be embarassing.

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and now Sarkozy’s going to attend the opening ceremony. just to piss them off, one hopes. i love symbols like that.

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[quote=“ac_dropout”]Well GW Bush defended his opportunity to go to the Olympics for fears of affronting the Chinese which would negatively impact future dialogues with China.

There is no way France is a prestigious as the USA when it comes to world affairs. So it is okay that they stay home and eat freedom fries with a side of tears.

These are the views of the average American.[/quote]

wtf is this average american shit? average obnoxious ABC/parachute kid perhaps…

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[quote=“the bear”][quote=“ac_dropout”]Well GW Bush defended his opportunity to go to the Olympics for fears of affronting the Chinese which would negatively impact future dialogues with China.

There is no way France is a prestigious as the USA when it comes to world affairs. So it is okay that they stay home and eat freedom fries with a side of tears.

These are the views of the average American.[/quote]

wtf is this average American shit? average obnoxious ABC/parachute kid perhaps…[/quote]

AC
It keeps me awake at night so….do the average views of an American = views of an average American?
Can I cancel the average by dividing both sides by average?