Month: April 2008

Far be it for me to tell a guy with a PhD in history about his business, but this is the second column that Dr. Hung has gone on to talk about the 1940 BERLIN Olympics:

On the other hand, China knows full well that the Beijing Olympics won’t be boycotted. The United States did not boycott the Olympics in Berlin in 1940.  [emphasis added]

Of course, the Berlin Games were in 1936, not 1940.  Didn’t mention it the first time because I assumed it was just a typo or a misprint.  But in this second column, Hung tries to tell us America separated sports from politics, and sent athletes to Germany some time during the Battle of Britain:

What China wants is the esteem of the wider world as a peacefully rising power.  Chinese President Hu Jintao is doing what Adolf Hitler did shortly after Nazi Germany invaded Poland.  The world withheld respect to the Nazis, but refrained from linking the Olympics to foreign policy issues just to snub Germany.

Hey, to err is human.  But that got me to thinking:  Where WERE the 1940 Olympic Games supposed to be held?  Wikipedia had the answer:

The anticipated 1940 Summer Olympics, which were to be officially known as Games of the XII Olympiad and originally programmed to be celebrated between September 21 and October 6, 1940 in Tokyo, Empire of Japan, were cancelled due to World War II.  The Games were retracted from Tokyo by the IOC due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They were awarded to the runner-up Helsinki, Finland, and were scheduled to be celebrated between July 20 to August 4, 1940.  When World War II broke out, the Summer Games were cancelled indefinitely – resuming in London in 1948.  [emphasis added]

Interesting, no?  The International Olympic Committee and the People’s Republic of China all lecture us up and down that the Olympics are "a sporting competition" which "shouldn’t be turned into a political forum." 

Yet in 1937, the IOC, on POLITICAL GROUNDS, found it within itself to WITHDRAW Japan’s right to hold the Games!

(Which makes sense – the Olympics weren’t intended to be merely "a sporting competition," but a celebration of peace as well.  A little hypocritical to pretend you’re celebrating peace when the host country has just started a major war.  Perhaps the IOC should have found the guts to do the same to Moscow back in 1980.)

And so we find that Joe Hung’s incorrect formulation:

The world withheld respect to the Nazis [during the 1940 Games], but refrained from linking the Olympics to foreign policy issues just to snub Germany.

Should actually read:

The world withheld respect to the Imperial Japanese, AND linked the Olympics to foreign policy issues to snub Japan.

Sounds like a precedent there.

From Joe Hung’s Monday column, Don’t try to mix sports and politics:

. . . Beijing could care less about Spielberg’s quitting in protest. As a matter of fact, China has an array of outstanding movie directors who can do the job of the American.

Let’s assume Dr. Hung is using the phrase "could care less" ironically — which is to say, the Chinese government doesn’t care at all.  Maybe that’s true;  let’s go back and check the reaction at the time:

Officially, the Chinese government has not directly criticized Spielberg by name, expressing only ”regret” over his decision.

Yep, sounds pretty mild.  But what about the UNOFFICIAL reaction?  The reaction from Chinese Communist Party media mouthpieces?

There, the response was a bit less indifferent:

A biting front-page editorial Wednesday in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, blasted Spielberg for his decision.

”A certain Western director was very naive and made an unreasonable move toward the issue of the Beijing Olympics. This is perhaps because of his unique Hollywood characteristics,” it said.

Over the weekend, the Guangming Daily, also published by the Communist Party, ran an editorial saying Spielberg ”broke his promise to make his contribution to the Beijing Olympics and betrayed the Olympic spirit.”

He ”is not qualified to blame China because he knows nothing about the great efforts the Chinese government has made on Darfur,” it said.

An editorial in the China Youth Daily was equally scathing.

”This renowned film director is famous for his science fiction. But now it seems he lives in a world of science fiction and he can’t distinguish a dream from reality,” it said.

The unofficial reaction is all the more remarkable because Spielberg was NEVER tapped to be a director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the ’08 Olympics.  His role was simply to be an artistic ADVISOR to Chinese director Zhang Yimou.

And yet, for withdrawing from such an apparently minor job, the Communist Party of China saw fit to order their media attack dogs to collectively lambaste Spielberg as a naive promise-breaking know-nothing who lives in his own little fantasy world.

Why say all that, if they’re not in the least bit bitter?

Ah, those were the words of pro-Beijing demonstrators in Seattle earlier this month. 

And here’s a clip of some of their counterparts in Canberra, illustrating what they mean by "Love." (skip forward to about 1:30)

(Image from The People’s Cube)

UPDATE:  More here.

UPDATE #2:  Heh.  An ambush interview at a Chinese consulate in Aus.

i-1

From Wednesday’s Taipei Times:

In a showing of pro-China support, hundreds of demonstrators protested outside a college arena as the Dalai Lama spoke to students on solving problems through dialogue.

Thousands of people have flocked to Seattle to hear the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader speak since he arrived Thursday for a five-day conference on compassion, but the city’s Chinese community had remained largely silent until Monday.

[…]

Some [protesters] echoed Beijing’s stand that the Dalai Lama is behind the recent uprising against five decades of Chinese rule. Signs called the Dalai Lama a liar and a “CIA-funded militant.” Many people waved large Chinese flags.

The group chanted “We love Tibet,” “Stop lying” and “Dalai, your smiles charm, your actions harm,” as thousands of people filed into the University of Washington arena. A small plane flew overhead with a banner mirroring the chants.

Ah yes, they love Tibet.  Though not enough to march in favor of free speech or democracy there, I’ll wager.

To paraphrase the old Soviet joke:  In America, Chinese are free to denounce the Dalai Lama.  While in China . . . they’re FREE to denounce the Dalai Lama, too!