China’s Olympics: Leadership Event

By John J. Tkacik Jr.
April 15, 2008

U.S. leadership on human rights faces a severe test on Tibet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have — despite Europe’s burgeoning trade ties with China — voiced their strong concern about Beijing’s ongoing violent suppression of dissent in Tibet, demonstrations in Xinjiang and stepped-up arrests of dissident writers and activists among China’s intellectuals.
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So far, they have been joined by the prime ministers of two other NATO allies, Poland and the Czech Republic. All have tied their concerns either explicitly or implicitly to their attendance at the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games. 
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It is understandable that European leaders who grew up under Soviet communism and Mr. Sarkozy, whose father was a postwar refugee from Hungary — are deeply unsettled by China’s behavior. Literally thousands of Tibetan dissidents have been arrested and detained by Chinese security police and army units in the ongoing demonstrations and protests that began on March 11. 
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“We have no reason to doubt that number,” one highly-placed Bush administration official admitted to me this week. Just last Thursday, Chinese police shot into a crowd of nonviolent Tibetan protesters in the Kardze section of Sichuan killing eight and injuring dozens. “That’s a hard number,” the official observed.
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In his second Inauguration speech, President Bush called the American foreign policy establishment to its conscience, “America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains….

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