In an April 18th interview with Canwest News, Bob Anders, the Conservative MP for Calgary West, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, stated that the upcoming Beijing Olympics were identical in spirit to the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Equating the Nazi regime that had gripped Germany in 1933 with the present Communist government in China, Anders insisted that China is not the proper host for the Games. “I absolutely, 100-per-cent think it compares to the Berlin Olympics of 1936,” he crowed, adding that he wanted “to go and talk to the Dalai Lama…to ask him about the cultural genocide that’s going on there [Tibet].”
Unfortunately, Mr. Anders has missed the point completely. For one thing, the Dalai Lama does not control the resistance movement in Tibet, and would probably be surprised to find that people felt he did. In an April 20th interview with Sheila Pratt of the ‘Edmonton Journal’, Wenran Jiang, a political science professor at the University of Alberta’s China Institute, said that the key to understanding what’s happening between Tibet and China is to recognize that China’s view of the problem is much different from the West’s. “In China’s view, the western press reports uncritically on the Dalai Lama with little understanding of his position or the history of Tibet. Whatever the Dalai Lama says is good and he works for the cause of freedom.”
In actual fact the situation is very different. Mr. Jiang states that, “The Free Tibet movement is not the Dalai Lama’s call for middle-of-the-road autonomy. It’s a call for outright independence and that reaches deep into the Chinese psyche to the question of national sovereignty.” Many Chinese ex-patriots who live in Canada, and other western countries, feel proud that China is hosting the Olympics and view the attacks against the Chinese government in the western press as personal attacks on their homeland. It doesn’t matter that they disagree with the way things are done in China or that they abhor the abuses and excesses of the Communist Party, they are still troubled about what is being said. In an interview with Nicholas Keung, an Immigration/Diversity Reporter, on April 13th , Toronto Lawyer and broadcaster Andrea Chun said: “For the silent majority, they know what’s going on in China. But they accept that the violation of human rights is part of the life in China. They also believe that things are changing there, slowly. They just don’t want a boycott of the Olympics.”
Another factor that colours the views of many Chinese-Canadians, even those who have lived here for many years, is the fact that the Beijing hosting of the Olympics eases the problems they have had finding and keeping jobs that are commensurate with their training and skills. Wilbert Lai, who was brought up in Hong Kong, educated in North America, and has lived in Canada for 34 years, was ecstatic that Beijing won its Olympic bid. “But China is my root,” he stated in an interview with Nicholas Keung, “I always have this emotional attachment to it. My views of China started to change when it opened it(sic) doors in the late 1980’s.”
China also feels that the charges leveled by the West against Chinese human rights abuses are duplicitous. When human rights groups in the West accuse China of cultural genocide in Tibet or complicity in the killings of non-Arab populations in Darfur, Wenran Jiang says that China sees these accusations as hypocritical. “Many see the current focus on Tibet as a diversion from the real genocide that’s going on in Iraq in the last five years and that’s perpetrated by the U.S. The U.S. claim to be the moral leader is tarnished under Bush. I’m not endorsing either side,” he told Sheila Pratt. His statement raises ethical questions, however.
A final point of consideration is the view of China that Tibet has been an integral part of the country for the past 700 years. The Chinese government considers that the western powers have interfered in the internal affairs of China many times in the past, such as the Opium Wars, and are now meddling again by supporting a separatist movement in Tibet. The government also feels that it has brought economic progress to Tibet through its construction of railways, roads, development of national resources, and an improved standard of living.
Neither does Canada escape condemnation in China’s view. China questions this country’s horrific record concerning its First Nations people and wonders why the international community has not reacted in the same way as it has to the China-Tibet question. The recognition of this irony is important and, though one would hope that the world has learned something since these cruelties were inflicted on Canada’s native population, China’s questioning of our past actions has its merits.
The Olympic Games controversy is about more than Chinese policy in Tibet, or at least it should be. The Games are an opportunity for China to open a window to the outside and to move ahead in its journey as a major contributor to the world politique. It is necessary to maintain contact with this powerful nation and equating its government with Nazi barbarism will only cut exchange. China needs, and wants, to look outward. If democracy ever comes to China, it will only do so if China is accepted and understood by the West.
