The Editorial Page

What about Tibet?

By EDITORIAL | March 28, 2008

China sought to host the Olympics for a number of reasons: to demonstrate to its own repressed people that its government was indeed worthy of respect, to erase from international memory the totalitarian stains of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre, and to mark its emergence as a self-confident world power.

There is no doubting China’s economic might. But China’s rulers are insulated and, in many respects, insecure about their place in the world. The international community’s failure to censure China’s support of the murderous Sudanese regime is not a mark of approval; it is a ploy that allows China to save face, to maintain the illusion of dignity in the shadow of monstrous and murderous acts. Such is the case with Tibet.

The Olympics are a glittering prize that was awarded China as, some might say, an incentive to better behavior. Others might call the games a bribe.

The point is now moot. The Olympics, viewed through the prism of China’s conquest and occupation of Tibet, are proving to be not a source of strength but a point of vulnerability. How confident can China be of its place in the world if it must pressure neighboring Nepal into closing the peak of Mount Everest, over which the Olympic torch is supposed to pass, because it fears a pro-Tibetan expression of sympathy? What should be a moment of glory, will instead be a moment of ignominy — for China and for the world.

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