Mail Call: China’s Games

Our Aug. 4 cover story, arguing that the Olympics were not the place to protest Chinese government failures, drew passionate responses. One reader asked, "What better venue?" Another said the purpose of the Games has always been "to promote competition as an alternative to confrontation."

Pride, Protest and the Olympics
China scholar Orville Schell's "China's Agony of Defeat" (Aug. 4), on what the Olympics mean to the Chinese in the context of understanding their history of humiliation, was interesting and informative. However, one need not look back 100 years to know that those who chose the Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to protest were in the wrong. The purpose of the modern Olympic Games is to promote competition as an alternative to confrontation and as a model for relations among nations. Furthermore, one does not accept an invitation with the intent to be disruptive and insulting to one's host. Such behavior is simply rude.
Betty Jo Chang
Douglas City, California

Orville Schell suggests that the Olympic Games are not the proper arena to address the Chinese government's derelictions. Why? Because the bully might hit you with more force than if you did nothing. What a cowardly view of the situation. The Chinese people are continually being humiliated, as Schell states, but it is the Chinese government doing the humiliating. It is time for the global community to say, "Stop." And what better venue could there have been than the Olympics? The message is: Stop persecuting your people. Stop censoring the masses and journalists in particular. Stop funding the aggressors in Sudan by supplying them with money. Stop the persecution of anyone who disagrees with your inhumane tactics. One stops a bully not by ignoring him, but by standing up to him. Thank God Gandhi and others like him did not share Schell's philosophy.
Raymond Westbrook
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

I cannot find any sympathy for the Chinese "humiliation." The humiliation should be for following a leader who took the people backward in time, enslaved and subjugated them, and turned the country into a big prison camp. They were dominated mentally and physically by one of the most regressive and totalitarian regimes in world history. Only when the Chinese started to adopt foreign ideas like capitalism that their leaders had demonized did China start progressing economically. The Chinese people should feel humiliated, but not for the reasons listed by Orville Schell. Their leaders failed them, and the populace didn't have the wherewithal to recognize it.
Jeff Cohen
Canfield, Ohio

It is common to see westerners or non-Chinese having a hard time understanding Chinese actions and pronouncements. Despite globalization, the gap in perspective and understanding of national issues remains wide. Culturally, the motivation for Chinese progress has always been to prevent failure, not merely to achieve success. The Chinese are reserved, and showing off is not in their blood. In fact, it is discouraged and treated as "shameless" in Chinese tradition. That is not to say that the Chinese forget what has been achieved; rather, they remember achievement as well as shameful experiences. They use mistakes and failures as a way to improve. In addition, the Chinese and non-Chinese have different sources of information. The Chinese government controls free speech and censors information that differs from the politically correct version. Indeed, completely opposing interpretations on the same issue are often given to the non-Chinese. For example, what Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday wrote in their book "Mao: The Unknown Story" is completely different from what Chinese textbooks teach about the Mao Zedong era. Jung's books are banned in China, but valued and appreciated in the West. Both China and the West must communicate further to foster a better understanding of one another's background and culture.
Zheng Cheng Jiu Lin
Singapore

How about an alternative vision for future Olympics? Instead of having the Games in different cities every four years and spending huge amounts of money building up facilities with the attendant dislocation, scrutiny of the host country's policies and politics, and possible publicity disasters, why not select a city in a poor African country and build permanent facilities so the Olympic Games can be held there every four years? The construction of the facilities could be sponsored by the multinational corporations and sports-equipment manufacturers that stand to benefit most from the Games, or the rich Arab nations that are making more money than they can spend in the current oil boom. Of course they would get naming rights and advertisement preferences for their money. This would focus a big development effort on a poor African country and would symbolically shine the Olympic light on the continent. Imagine the benefit of development, construction, jobs and economic growth that could accrue to Africa. In this way, the world community could put its purse in place of its pronouncements toward the development of Africa.
S. Mohanakrishnan
Auckland, New Zealand