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Politics or Sport

Entry 738, on 2008-04-09 at 20:48:19 (Rating 3, News)

The Beijing Olympic Games seem to be as much about politics and public relations for China as they are about sport. We shouldn't be surprised about this because sport has become increasingly politicised over the last 30 (or more) years. The controversy during the Springbok tour in the 80s probably couldn't happen again. How naive were we back then when we debated whether politics should affect sport. Today no one would even consider the question because politics is firmly fixed as an element of sport.

So Olympic traditions, like the torch being toured through participating countries, are now as much a political and commercial event as a sporting one. The old sporting ideals are dead. Sport isn't about a spirit of fair competition, its about maximising the positive exposure for your sponsor, making the administration of your country look good, and pursuing personal glory at all costs. I'm sure there are some people who haven't adapted to this new culture of sport but I wonder how successful they are.

So the Olympic torch is a publicity event designed to make China look good but its achieving the opposite effect because of the protests in support of Tibet which are associated with it. The Chinese government are determined that the tour should continue but its only achieving the opposite effect that it was meant to, so why are they bothering? Maybe its because of the traditional hard line, determined attitude the Chinese have had. Compromise doesn't appear to be one of their stronger attributes.

If other powers around the world were running the Olympics would we see protests on this scale? Would we see a protest aimed at an event being run in the US because of that country's involvement in Iraq, for example? Maybe we would, but I don't think it would be on the same scale as what we are seeing now aimed at China.

I think there's a disquiet with China's increasing prominence on the world political, economic, and cultural stage. Its power is based on exploitation of its workers through a low wage economy which is very good at manufacturing at very low costs. It has draconian rules in place designed to hide information from its citizens. This is not the type of country that many people would admire greatly, even if they don't hesitate to enjoy the benefits of cheap goods made there.

As I have said in previous blog posts, we have to be pragmatic, and dealing with China in commerce, sport and politics is inevitable so I guess the western world really needs to maintain its existing moderate position and gently encourage China down a more free and reasonable political path.

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