麻豆社

Bush at the Olympics

• James Reynolds
• 4 Jul 08, 12:29 PM GMT

There's one bit of diary news - buried in the last line of a - that matters a huge amount to China's government:

"The President and Mrs Bush will attend the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympic Games on August 8."

I'll put this in a non-bureaucratic way: the world's most powerful man will attend the most important part of the most important event that Communist China has ever held.

That's a big symbolic victory for China. Since the protests in Tibet in March, human rights campaigners have called on world leaders to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games.

So far, the leaders of Germany and Canada have decided to stay away. Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided to go to the closing ceremony instead. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has suggested that he'll make his decision based on how much progress has been made in talks between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama (in case he needs any help making up his mind, Chinese newspapers have published a saying that the Chinese people don't want him to come.)

President Bush's decision may come as a disappointment to two members of his own political party. This past week two Republican congressmen, Frank R Wolf and Chris Smith came to Beijing to lobby for the release of 734 political prisoners. On 29 June the congressmen were from having dinner with a group of Chinese human rights lawyers. (The Chinese government says that the congressmen overstepped the terms of their visas.)

Congressman Wolf called on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games if the lawyers were not released and if there was no progress on releasing the political prisoners.

Strong words. But their President is coming anyway.

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