MARINA DEL REY, CA--The 2008 Olympics will "open up" China about as effectively as the 1936 Olympics opened up Nazi Germany, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.
"We are told," said Rob Tracinski, also a columnist for Creators Syndicate, "that the Olympic games will not be interpreted by China's leaders as a reward for their past misdeeds, but as an incentive to increase their toleration of dissent. The political pressure of being in the 'Olympic Spotlight,' in this view, will help to open up China."
"Exactly how this is supposed to happen is hopelessly vague," noted Tracinski. "Beijing boosters claim that Western countries can now hold the games as 'leverage' over China. Where is the precedent for this? Did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) use their leverage to keep Soviet tanks from rolling into Afghanistan during the 1980 Olympics?
"Hitler used the 1936 Olympics to present Nazi Germany as a civilized, cultured, advanced nation, a nation worthy of showing off its achievements to the world--even as the Nazis began their work of murder and oppression."
"The tragedy of the IOC's decision," said Tracinski, is not so much the reward that has been granted to China's dictatorship: it is the fact that, just as in the years leading up to World War II, the free nations of the world have lost the moral confidence to judge, to condemn, and to ostracize the world's dictators."