Bad Staff Work

Of all the cities in the United States of America, the officials of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games decided to run the Olympic torch through San Francisco yesterday. Those in charge of the Olympics being held in the country that is the most frequent and public human rights violator decided to run the Olympic torch through the most liberal (and most vocal) city in the nation, as an attempt to build international support for the games. Fantastic planning.

San Francisco has the largest "Chinatown" district in the country, so it's not completely beyond logic that they would choose to run the Olympic flame through the city. But, San Francisco is notorious for being both liberal and outspoken, and China is notorious for not letting their citizens be either, so a red flag (no pun intended) should have been raised at some point in the planning. Though, I don't think the protests could have been avoided completely; if they had run the torch through Wainwright, Alaska, Richard Gere probably would have been there, along with other protesters. But Wainwright would have at least had a smaller local base of protest support in its population of approximately 550.

I understand why people are protesting and calling for a boycott of the upcoming Olympic Games. China is oppressing many, many innocent people. However, I think that boycotting would be a bad idea, for two reasons:

First, right now the United States needs China. We are currently fighting two wars (one of which we're neglecting, one of which is a black hole), and China is footing the bill. You can blame those in charge for that one. Also, we need the Chinese markets. The US economy is going through a very difficult time, and a large portion of our exports go into the Chinese economy. I disagree with many of the Chinese government's actions, but I don't think it would be a very good strategic move if the United States were to alienate one of the world's emerging powers, especially one that we're so dependent on.

Second, this is how diplomacy works. The United States government is trying to bring China out into the open, to bring it into the light. That is done by doing business, communicating, and trying to slowly pull China closer to us, and away from their terrible human rights policies. China does atrocious things to people, and getting them to change is a long, arduous process. Boycotting the games will not make China suddenly change their policy.

We can't have all the things we want.

But all I'm really saying is that they could have chosen a less controversial city than San Francisco.

Call it bad staff work.