Via the Agenzia Giornalistica Italia
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will not be present at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 “due to other scheduled appointments”.
Spokesman Marie Okabe said this, specifying that this is the present situation and that the final decision will be taken later. In any case Okabe underlined that it is no political decision.
Of course not.
The AGI also reports that British PM Gordon Brown will not be at the opening ceremony.
FWIW, It seems to me that skipping the opening ceremony is a fine compromise between folks who want to send a clear signal to China that its conduct on a number of issues is not appreciated and those who do not want politics to mix with the sporting events.
It seems that some Koreans also have a beef with China (World Politics Review):
Sphere: Related ContentOnlookers watch as a man tied up in ropes is led down a crowded pedestrian street by a woman holding a plastic assault rifle. Another man holding a megaphone explains that the re-enactment depicts a scene that has become an everyday occurrence in China. A multinational coalition of activists, calling themselves the 4-4-4 Campaign, holds this demonstration each weekend in downtown Seoul.
12 Comments
It was a perfect ideal letting China host the games in hindsight.
Well, there goes a few million in UN discretionary spending China could have had.
“It was a perfect ideal letting China host the games in hindsight.”
IOC head Rogge thought so:
But departing from past reluctance to criticize the Olympic host nation, Rogge noted: “The representatives of the bid have said, and I quote freely because I do not know it by heart, that awarding the games to China would advance the social agenda of China, including human rights. …We definitely ask China to respect this moral engagement.”
http://www.kansascity.com/news.....70861.html
Wishful thinking is always fun and cheap . . . guiding principles are not so though, unless they aid one for making excuses for their lack of good judgment and foresight.
Any idea what the numbers in the 4-4-4 campaign stand for? I imagine at least one of them is a word play on 死, but I’ve no idea what the other ones could be.
Maybe “4 decades until China has suzerainty over us again”
The 4 corresponds with the similar sounding Chinese word for death. They began their protest 444 days before the start of the Olympics.
4-4-4 could just be a strait play on 8-8-8. The Chinses wanted to start the games on 08-08-2008 because it is a lucky number.
Westerners…lol.. have no ideal what the Chinese have in mind once their dream of overtaking their former colonizers come to fruit. If you read some of the Chinese netizens, you’d realize there’s a lot of pent up frustrations against Western countries to say the least. You think Korea is the only one facing China rise? Chinese target is not Korea, it’s US and EU. By the looks of things, they pretty much got you guys by the legs. Just look at the sheer amount of US debt owed to China. I shutter to think what’s going to happen once the Chinese start buying up bankrupt US companies and assets.
Oh shit no!!!!!….there goes the last hope of injecting some excitement and pizazz into the Games! Maybe they can persuade him to send the kimchi astronaut in his place?
China never had suzerainty, it was the Manchurians after they invaded China. Tributes during the 16th century and on were sent to Manchuria not China.
#8 China is already well on it’s way to buying up many American companies, and yes, the sh*t will hit the fan once American policies conflict with China’s.
Wonder what is behind American reluctance to be more hardline over China’s human right violations? Count the number of banks/financual institutes recently(say within the last year) that have been bailed out through Chinese investment.
#11 Smoke and mirrors. The day China becomes a market economy you can start to worry. China routinely steals monies from the people to make the state owned industries payroll. Forget about their Muslim problem, internal economic disparities will un-do China before it is ever a threat to the west.