China’s Bloody Hands
With the Beijing Olympics now about ten months away, it seems more and more that the Chinese government simply can’t wash the blood off its hands.
Tibet. Tiananmen. Darfur. Burma. The Chinese government’s hands are bloody. We imagine China’s leaders like the scheming Lady Macbeth, furiously scrubbing her hands to no avail, muttering “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” (Macbeth (V, i, 38)) Like Beijing’s impossibly smoggy skies, however, the Chinese government won’t be able to clean its hands in time for the Olympics.
Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which she explained China’s role in propping up the brutal Burmese regime. She ended with this plea:
All of us should make it clear that Beijing’s policy of “noninterference” with repressive economic clients cannot be tolerated. We should care about divesting from Chinese companies not only for the people of Darfur, but also for the Burmese, the Tibetans, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo–to say nothing about the countless millions of Chinese denied their human rights as well.
To paraphrase “The Lady” Aung San Suu Kyi, we must use our liberty to promote theirs.
We could not have said it better ourselves.
The outspoken lawyer Gao Zisheng, who was just arrested by the Chinese government for sending an open letter to U.S. lawmakers, said that more and more Chinese citizens are calling the Beijing Olympics the “bloody Olympics” due to the increased repression from a stability-obsessed Chinese government. With the Chinese government playing the part of Lady Macbeth, we think that label is very appropriate.
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