TIBET, DARFUR AND THE BEIJING OLYMPICS - August 7, 2008

Tomorrow, Beijing will welcome the world to the Summer Olympic Games. Although more than one hundred twenty heads of state are invited to the opening ceremonies, not all of them have given their nod. Pressured by governmental and civilian groups to boycott the Games but knowing China’s burgeoning sway on the international stage, world leaders have found in the Beijing Olympics a political tightrope.

The G8 is divided. George Bush of the U.S., Nicolas Sarkozy of France—who also heads the E.U.’s European Council—and Yasuo Fukuda of Japan, have promised to attend while Stephen Harper of Canada, Gordon Brown of the U.K., who plans on attending

the closing ceremonies, and Angela Merkel of Germany have declined the invite. More nebulous have been Russia and Italy; Russia has simply stated that a “high-level delegation” will be present, and as of July 7, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is only “inclined” to attend.

While attendees concur that the Games should be a sporting event, not a political one, specific reasons for non-attendance vary. Some cite scheduling conflicts. Some cite China’s policies. Recently, Amnesty International issued a report that castigates China for its arms trading around the world, and a statement by influential Jewish leaders, entitled “The China Olympics Are Not Kosher,” deplores Beijing’s “denial of basic rights to its own citizens,” its “friendship for Hamas,” its “support for the genocidal government of Sudan,” and its “mistreatment of the people of Tibet.” Though their grievances are many, Olympic naysayers have rallied around these last two points of friction—Tibet and Darfur.

Tibet. In March, a series of violent protests ripped through Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city. Marking the anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s exile, these protests, the most serious and prolonged in the region since the 1980s, opened a deluge of bad publicity for China. The government of the Tibet Autonomous region told Xinhua that “there had been enough evidence to prove that the recent sabotage in Lhasa was ‘organized, premeditated and masterminded’ by the Dalai clique.” A spokesman for the Dalai Lama dismissed that claim as “absolutely baseless.”

Such polarity is anything but uncommon in the Sino-Tibetan dialogue. As documented by Elliot Sperling, the region’s history, particularly the question of Tibet’s sovereignty, has long been polemical. To cite one example, a 1992 PRC official white paper declares, “For more than 700 years the central government of China has continuously exercised sovereignty over Tibet and Tibet has never been an independent state.” Tibet, post-1950s Chinese writers insist, has for centuries belonged to the Middle Kingdom. With Tibetan hierarchs baring their heads Yuan, Ming, and Qing emperors, Tibetans were assimilated long ago as a national minority.

Others beg to differ. A year after the publication of that PRC white paper, the Government of Tibet in Exile stated, “At the time of its invasion by troops of the People’s Liberation Army of China in 1949, Tibet was an independent state in fact and law. The military invasion constituted an aggression on a sovereign state and a violation of international law.” According to the government in exile, Tibetans are culturally distinct and have been formally recognized: While applying for U.N. membership, Nepal announced its independent diplomatic relations with Tibet, and Bhutan, Britain, India, and China have all maintained diplomatic missions in Lhasa. An unassimilated Tibet awarded the mission of China’s Guomindang government no special status.

Weighing the histories told on both sides of conflict, Sperling concedes, “one might still say the status of Tibet, whatever it was in the past, is now settled, and the incorporation of Tibet into China has long since been a fait accompli.” However, he adds, that history is clouded by struggles and uncertainties, so “The facts as established by recourse to the historical record are wont to be subject to divergent interpretations.” Though central to the conflict, history alone will not answer Tibet’s unresolved identity questions.

Because of the many sides to these questions, some feel that the media has been unfair. Earlier this year, CNN news commentator Jack Cafferty even denounced China as a bunch of “goons and thugs.” At least partly in reaction, a group of Chinese-American students organized a peaceful, pro-Olympics rally in New York City, a hot zone for anti-China demonstrations. More than ten thousand supporters took part. One of them, Xu Ming, currently a student in Duke University’s MBA program, stated, “Just like any other country in the world, China is not perfect. We welcome criticism, not hostility; we welcome human rights, but not disrespect; we love freedom, but not anarchy; we seek out truth, but we don’t appreciate media distortion.”

Aimed at correcting that distortion, placards at the rally featured statistics about Tibet. Xinhua reported, “One placard showed that the infant mortality rate in Tibet dropped from 430 per thousand in 1951 to only 35 per thousand in 2006 and the region's average life expectancy had increased from 35 to 67 years.” Another placard said, “The number of Tibetans enjoying primary education rose from 2 percent in 1951 to 98 percent in 2006.” These numbers coincide with data collected by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). However, not all is rosy. Tibetan standards of living have indeed, on the whole, improved, yet the numbers reveal significant obstacles to long-term development. Education and vocational training are a particular concern.

According to UNESCAP, “Tibet’s people have a relatively lower educational level than that of other provinces or regions, with a large number of illiterates and semi-illiterates. In 2000, the illiterate rate was 32.50% which was the highest in China. The weakness in the educational infrastructure and the lack of advanced and intermediate professionals and staff are major problems in Tibet. In 2000, the enrollment rate of school-age children was 85.80% which was the lowest in China.” The cry to “Free Tibet,” then, is mostly a demand for personal freedoms and human rights, not sovereignty. All things considered, Tibet needs the brain power, infrastructure, and coffers of the mainland to sustain its further development.

Darfur. In 2003, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army attacked
the capital in central Darfur. Fearing these rebels might unravel Sudanese national unity, the government launched a campaign of aerial bombings supporting ground attacks by the janjaweed, Arab militia recruited from local tribes. This geographical, political, economic, ethnic conflict soon became, in the words of Kofi Annan, ittle short of hell on earth. At present, the U.N. estimates a death count as high as three hundred thousand, and two and a half million have been displaced.

China has been reluctant to intervene, even blocking U.N. action against Khartoum. As noted by Dr. Yitzhak Shichor, Senior Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, China’s approach to conflict resolution differs from the west’s. Shichor explains that “Beijing prefers that internal conflicts be settled by the parties directly concerned (the government and its adversaries). As Beijing stated, ‘[R]esolving the Darfur issue should be realized through dialogue and peace talks’ (Zhongguo Tongxun She, February 3).” So far, however, this noninterventionist policy has been effete.

Because of the ongoing stalemate, calls to boycott the Olympics have been especially strident from activists like Mia Farrow. In “The ‘Genocide Olympics,’” an editorial published in the Huffington Post, Farrow and her son Ronan write, “As one of the few players whose support is indispensable to Sudan, China has the power to, at the very least, insist that Khartoum accept a robust international peacekeeping force to protect defenseless civilians in Darfur. Beijing is uniquely positioned to put a stop to the slaughter, yet they have so far been unabashed in their refusal to do so.” In this view, blood spilled in the continuing atrocities be on China’s hands.

The Farrows base the thrust of their argument on economic ties. As they correctly report, “China is pouring billions of dollars into Sudan. Beijing purchases an overwhelming majority of Sudan's annual oil exports and state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.—an official partner of the upcoming Olympic Games—owns the largest shares in each of Sudan’s two major oil consortia.” Indeed, China, the world’s fourth largest economy, gobbles up sixty percent of Sudanese oil—an industry capable of producing, though falling significantly short of, 500,000 barrels per day (bpd). Plus, China has accorded Sudan an interest-free loan of 100 million yuan (12.8 million dollars) with an additional grant of 40 million yuan (5.1 million dollars) to improve living conditions there. With Sino-Sudanese trade volume totaling in the billions, President Omar al-Bashir has declared his country and China “officially economic partners.” Yet, despite these ties, some say Beijing has little actual power over the Darfur conflict.

Two such doubters are Morton Abramowitz and Jonathan Kolieb of the Century Foundation. Labeling China a “convenient whipping boy,” Abramowitz and Kolieb write, “Yes, China has the economic leverage to gain the ear of President Bashir, but that hardly means it has the ability—or, more to the point, the will—to bully him into accepting a large U.N. peacekeeping contingent in Darfur. China’s multibillion dollar investments in Sudan’s petroleum industry are a much-needed source of energy for its mushrooming economy. Beijing may make tactical moves to pressure Sudan, but it will not choose human rights over oil, a matter of paramount national interest.” Like other countries, China pegs its foreign policy to its energy needs.

Hypothetically, even if Paramount Leader Hu Jintao did convince al-Bashir to allow U.N. peacekeepers, China would still be ill-positioned to serve as a mediator and as an international moral compass. According to Abramowitz and Kolieb, the Middle Kingdom is certainly not the first country to shirk these roles. They conclude, “Highlighting China’s woeful human rights record is important, but does little to resolve the conflict in Darfur. China is not going to do what the United States and Europe have been unwilling to do for the past four years.” China will not save Darfur, but the U.S. should: Because it was the U.S. that invoked the label of genocide, the burden of leadership logically falls on American shoulders.

China, however, is leery of further U.S. involvement. Shichor points out that “Beijing is certainly worried that the U.S.-led efforts to stop human rights abuses in Sudan (and elsewhere) could at some point be directed at China itself. In addition, China is likely to be troubled with the implications that intervention would present for its own sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity—ideals that are highly valued by Beijing.” Supra-nationally, Darfur is also a struggle over ideology.

With the death toll rising, the conflict in the “house of the Fur,” as yet, has no end in sight. Recognizing the deep-seated governance and identity issues at stake, analysts have told the Associated Press that “a broader peace will only come when Sudan rises above tribal and regional interests and embraces a sense of nationhood that transcends the exclusively Arab and Muslim ethos long promoted by Sudan ’s leaders.” Regardless of Chinese or other foreign involvement, any lasting peace in Sudan is ultimately incumbent upon al-Bashir and his regime.

Conclusions. Boycotts against Beijing were, from the beginning, doomed to failure. As David von Drehle wrote in Time Magazine, “boycotts are empty gestures. Governments boycott, athletes suffer, and the only thing that changes is that the credibility of the Olympics as a festival of goodwill suffers another dent.” The last stay-aways occurred during the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul , and since then, the Olympics have proven impressively resistant to naysayers. This year, although some world leaders will forgo the Beijing Games, qualified athletes from some two hundred nations will participate. And rightly so.

Those forgoing the Games stand to gain little. In China , the number eight represents prosperity, so the symbolic import of being present in Beijing on 8-8-08 at 8:08:08 China Standard Time (CST) goes without saying. Once the sick man of Asia, now a whipping boy, China sees the opening ceremonies as its worldwide induction as the west’s equal, as the dawning of a new cultural and political era. To be sure, the world’s balance of power is tipping eastward, but perhaps high-ranking absentees fear that, by attending the Games, they will symbolically condone Chinese policies and practices.

The example set by Beijing-bound Sarkozy should dispel those fears. Resisting threats of “serious consequences” from Chinese officials, Sarkozy still plans on meeting with the Dalai Lama. He still insists that Chinese influence is needed to end the scandal in Darfur . But he refuses to boycott a quarter of humanity. Though not without his critics, the French president has, so far, tightroped effectively between national and international agendas.

Tibet and Darfur remain problematic. However, the Olympics offer an opportunity for western powers to strengthen ties with—but not excuse—a player central to both conflicts. Journalists can stir public outrage, governments can apply multilateral pressure, but change in Tibet hinges on the Chinese government. Given China ’s bent for answering hostility with hostility, that change may be slow in coming; Jintao and his administration have little tolerance for dissent.

More pressing is Darfur , where humanitarian aid organizations can reach only a fraction of the victims. With its economic clout in Sudan , its chummy relations with President al-Bashir, and its seat on the U.N. Security Council, China enjoys a unique leverage. Decisive action, therefore, requires the cooperation of the Middle Kingdom. Left to the parties directly involved, thousands more Sudanese will fall prey to violence, disease, and starvation. For all these reasons and others, grant Beijing their Olympics carrot. But keep a stick handy for later.

Michael Madson

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The author of the article is a B.A. candidate in Political Science and Asian Studies at Weber State University in Utah. His interests are in poverty issues, human rights, globalizations and South East Asia relations.

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