Left Flank

Minding my Chinese readers, there is a certain symbolic "WOW"-ness related to the lighting of a torch on Mt. Everest. I just wish it weren't an Olympic torch. And, I hope those torch-bearers clean up after themselves.

How much it warms my heart to hear Bryan Curtis dismiss the Olympics! And, Robert Lipsyte is right-watch a sporting event, but let's not make it into a big deal. Good people have better things to do than worry-or better ways to help-the Chinese people get respect.

The problem with a compromise, that it satisfies no one's moral beliefs all the more that it is reasonable. For instance, how do we confront PRC's human rights problem?

The most successful human rights engagement with China—such as that of John Kamm, a former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong who has intervened on behalf of hundreds of political prisoners—is characterized by what one might call respectful tenaciousness. Trying to crack Chinese Internet censorship or highlighting the cases of those mistreated for seeking to advance the rule of law or exercise free speech, for instance, is always appropriate. But so is applauding China's attempts to control corruption or experiment with local elections.

Effective human rights work requires two things. First, it requires a tragic sense of history—a recognition that, no matter what we do, we will never be able to save everyone from misery or suffering. Sometimes, for example, despite its immense power and resources, the U. S. government's own ability to influence human rights is limited, and its willingness to do so in a bold way is compromised by competing interests. We who care about human rights would do well to recognize that and shape our recommendations to the U.S. government accordingly. Otherwise, we risk even greater marginalization than we already experience.

But secondly, good human rights work requires persistence and a long view, the recognition that human rights have become the lingua franca for much of the world and a ticket of admission to widely honored membership in the international community. The United States with its plummeting approval ratings around the globe has learned that the hard way. China too will learn eventually that the best way to avert hurt feelings is to avoid prompting criticism in the first place.

I'm almost certain none will like this suggestion.

So, Michael Goldfarb, troublemakers? I guess, to be generous, this is the Jeffersonian perspective on IR. Or, is PRC just a dumping ground for unwanted Hollywood performers?

Lest I be unfair, Robert Farley, could you sound any more wishy-washy? Odious events, but odious? What, are we splitting metaphysical hairs? What do you care about?

I hope this is not the best on PRC American academia and punditry have to offer!

«When you think of Korea, you possibly imagine a divided peninsula…»

…Or dog sledging? From dinner to excuse, dogs are now the latest fad in strained peace metaphors (and dodgy science). South Koreans, like the woman interviewed, have turned pet ownership into a fetish of middle-class propserity. It's a canine fad struggling North Koreans are unlikely to appreciate on an empty stomach.

Let's stop canonizing or demonizing (unfortunately, both left and right have latched on to this cause celebre) celebrities for taking safe political stands. Case in point: Steven Spielberg (and Mia Farrow). Why stop at boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when we can just end the Olympic movement!

Who cares for weeks of spectator sports most viewers will never practice, and the mere viewing of which is even more harmful to health. Why support a movement fueled by corporate endorsement of drugs-abusing spoiled, isolated monsters whose entire lives have revolved around celebrity and abuse of their own bodies? Why support a movement that allows governments to build worthless infrastructure with public money, and then forces tax-payers to alter their life's for weeks to cater to foreigners for the governments' benefit?

It's not that I agree with Beijing's human rights abuses, or its Sudan policy. It's that the reason Beijing, and other developing states, want to host an Olympics is, to justify building infrastructure.

«It's like approaching the Forbidden City, it's absolutely incredible.» The adjective is one that Mouzhan Majidi, chief executive of Foster + Partners, liberally attaches to Beijing's new airport terminal, designed by his British firm. The world's largest, designed in the gently sinuous form of a Chinese dragon, it was planned and built in four years by an army of 50,000 workers. «The columns on the outside are red and you see them marching for miles and miles,» says Mr Majidi.

A little hyperbole is understandable. The terminal is 3km (1.8 miles) long. The floor space is 17% bigger than all the terminals at London's Heathrow combined (including about-to-open Terminal Five). Chinese officials like the Forbidden City analogy. Just as the towering vermilion walls and golden roofs of the imperial palace inspire visitors with awe, China wants its golden-roofed terminal to impress those arriving for the Olympic games in August. Part of a $3.8 billion expansion, which included the opening of a third runway in October, it is due to open on February 29th, weeks ahead of schedule.

(…)

There was no consultation with the public on the terminal. Nor was there any public debate about the construction of Beijing's third runway, notwithstanding the noise pollution already suffered by thousands of nearby residents. Beijing is now planning a second airport (even with Mr Majidi's terminal, the current airport is expected to exceed its designed capacity of 60m passengers this year, seven years before schedule). The location is being considered in secret. Xu Li, an official at the Ministry of Communications' transport research institute, agrees that China's infrastructure expansion is not as restrained by rules as it is in America. Once a plan is made, it is executed. «Democracy», she says, «sacrifices efficiency.»

An often heavy-handed approach to land appropriation also helps. For Beijing's airport expansion, 15 villages were flattened and their more than 10,000 residents resettled nearby. But several of the former farmers told your correspondent that they were still barred from the unemployment benefits and other welfare privileges of city dwellers even though their farmland had been grabbed from them. One elderly man said that officials had threatened them with violence if they refused to leave their villages.

(…)

A show-off tendency among Chinese urban planners (as well as a dire lack of suburban rail networks) has helped to fuel a rapid expansion of costly underground railways. In some cases, says the World Bank, this is diverting resources away from urgent needs in the bus systems. Two decades ago only two cities, Beijing and Tianjin, had subways (and only three lines between them). Now 15 cities are building them at a total cost of tens of billions of dollars. Beijing and Shanghai are leading the way, spurred on by their desire to impress the world at the Olympic games and, in Shanghai's case, the World Expo which it will host in 2010. Beijing's official Olympics website displays a story saying that the city will have the biggest underground network in the world by 2015.

Such abuse is not limited to Beijing, or even East Asian autocracies.

• For the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, 720,000 people were forcibly evicted from their homes and homeless people were rounded up and detained in facilities outside the city, the report said.
• Leading up to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, more than 400 families were displaced to make room for the Olympic Village, 20 families were evicted from the site of the Olympic stadium and 200 other families were displaced for the construction of ring roads. Housing prices and rents increased 139 and 149 percent respectively during the six-year period before the games and the lack of affordable housing forced low-income earners out of the city.
• For the 1996 Atlanta Games, some 30,000 poor residents were displaced due to gentrification.About 2,000 public housing units were demolished. Legislation was introduced to criminalize homelessness, the report said.
• Legislative measures also were introduced ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics to simplify the expropriation of private property. Hundreds of Roma were evicted from their settlements. Homeless people were also locked up and stuck in mental hospitals
• Because the main sporting complex for the 2000 Sydney Games was built on surplus government wasteland, no one was directly evicted or displaced for those games. But the city's gentrification led to house prices more than doubling between 1996 and 2003. Rents soared 40 percent, forcing many to move to the city's fringe.

In short, the real human rights abuse is not just Beijing, but the Olympics itself. Even The Economist has to admit, that the modern Olympic movement has never lived up to its own hype:

Lofty words are always a hostage to fortune. The Olympic movement boasts that the games «have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles.» Yet history suggests otherwise. Boycotts marred the jamborees of 1956, 1976, 1980 and 1984. In 1968 two American sprinters gave a Black Power salute on the podium. The 1972 games were blighted when Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes.

It's not as if athletes will miss opportunities for competition, or corporations for advertising. World Cups are just as prestigious, and incur their own abuse (that will be the next boycott!). But, if we want to use the Olympics to make a one-time statement about Sudan, then why not take the extra effort and avoid future abuse on a two-year rotating schedule?

Believe me when I say I'm ecstatic about the New York Giants' 17-14 win over the New England Patriots. The Cinderella win means that perfection is still just out of reach, for at least another season. And, that's always good for competition and league parity.

Yet, it seems the AP is creating another icon in Eli Manning, now lauded as David felling the undefeated Goliath, the 18-1 Patriots.

They remain alone thanks to Manning, whose 13-yard game-winner came four plays after he somehow escaped a cadre of Patriots engulfing him, threw the ball up for grabs and watched receiver David Tyree somehow pin it between his hands and his helmet for the 32-yard reception.

That 4th quarter play was the clincher, but somehow David Tyree looks like the predicate in a pre-destined grammatical construction full of X's and O's and arrows. Steve Smith and Randy Moss seemingly changed bodies. The Giants' front line protected Manning better than Tom Brady got. And, praise defense for a low-scoring game. This was a team win.

Archie Manning must be gloating, too.

Is proximity a more important factor than acclimation for Olympic athletes seeking a training advantage? Of course, humans aren't horses (and some Swiftians would find that fact depressing), but then all those concerns about smoggy, humid air transcend species boundaries.

As of Thursday, 15 foreign countries had decided to send a total of 499 athletes to South Korea. The teams are to train in some dozen disciplines in Seoul, North Chungcheong Province and Jeju. Egypt has agreed with the Korea Oly