Tibet, China, and the Olympics

It seems like calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics is the fashionable thing to be doing lately, especially after the recent protests and subsequent crackdown in Tibet. I think this is quite rash at best. You have to first consider, what is the goal of such a boycott? I would imagine the argument is something like, "Boycotting the games in Beijing will send a clear statement to China that we do not agree with their domestic/foreign policies" Ok, but why would they care if the Olympics are not successful? Two reasons - 1. The Olympics will make a lot of money. 2. Hosting the Olympics is prestigious for China and gives them "street cred" on the world stage.

First of all, I'm not even convinced that reason 1 is true. I've read articles (and listened to lectures) by economists who make the argument that the Olympics tend to be a financial net loss. It's just such a tremendous infrastructure investment, much of it temporary, that it cannot hope to be recouped in total. So maybe by boycotting the Olympics we ("we" here [and throughout] referring to anyone considering a boycott; as far as I know this isn't even being seriously considered by the U.S.) will make them relatively more expensive. But like I said, i don't think China is looking to make money here, so we would be working on the wrong incentive. The cost of holding the Olympics may just be the price paid for the resulting prestige.

Well then, incidental to making them lose even more money, we'll humiliate them! That'll show 'em. Maybe. At what cost though? China is a very influential world power, becoming more so all the time, and shows no signs of slowing down. Do we want to alienate them? Is the entire world going to get in on this? Doubtful. My prediction is no one boycotts in full; perhaps there will be small scale gestures (I read the president of France may skip out on the opening ceremony), and there will surely be individual, small scale protests. But the games will go on.

I agree with those who say that the Olympics should be "above" politics, as that is the spirit of the event.* Of course this isn't true (again, there will surely be individual, small scale protests) but sheesh, can't we even pretend that we would like this to be the case?? Involvement in the Olympics is not an implicit endorsement of the host nation's policies. Athletes are not diplomats. Ok, there is some "diplomatic" aspect, as they are technically representatives of our country; but they are cultural representatives, not political. Why can't a successful Olympics in Beijing be seen as an embrace of the Chinese culture instead of the government policies? Many people have said it but I agree, the real losers are the athletes. Face it, as objectionable as some of China's policies are, the Olympics were not conceived as a bargaining chip.

*At first I wondered why the IOC would even award the Olympics to Beijing - could they not foresee this issue arising? It's not like China all of the sudden adopted a questionable stance on human rights (if anything the situation has likely improved since the games were first awarded). The only thing I could think was that the IOC truly does consider the games to be outside of politics, and for this reason this did not bear on their decision. For whatever reason, they made a decision at that time, China has the Olympics this summer, and they're not going to be taken away.