China is not fit to host the Olympics
20 May 2008
Prince Charles has declined to attend the Beijing games as a protest against perceived human rights abuses. Steven Spielberg heads a list of celebrities urging others to stay away. There has been unprecedented worldwide public protest over China's human rights abuses.
However, are China’s failings any greater than those of other nations that have hosted the Olympics? What of China’s great strengths – do they count for nothing? Where does the balance lie? Should sport be ‘quarantined’ from the politics of such matters?
And in any case, who are we to judge such matters when there are so many problems in our own backyard?
Watch this debate:
Speakers
Chair:
Geraldine Doogue is a highly respected television and radio presenter who has won a deserved reputation for impartial and questioning interviews and programmes. She is sought after as a speaker and conference host, and was awarded the Order of Australia in 2006 for helping to enhance Australia’s ethical values.
For:
Senator Bob Brown has been a life-long activist, and has become a leading voice for Human Rights in Australia. Earlier this year his 'Tibet motion' calling for the Australian Government to take reasonable action against repression of Tibetan people by China, passed the Senate without dissent. He has long been involved in conservation, and in 1986 he was shot at and assaulted during logging protests. He became the Director of the Wilderness Society, which organised the blockade of the dam-works on Tasmania's wild Franklin River in 1982, where he was arrested and spent nineteen days in Risdon Prison. While serving in the Tasmanian parliament, he successfully campaigned for a large increase in the protected wilderness areas. Bob Brown was a driving force in forming the Australian Greens in 1992. He has spoken widely for the rights of the Tibetan people and against Human Rights abuses within China.
Michael Milton is an elite athlete. He is Australia’s first winter gold medallist (Olympic or Paralympic) and is Australia’s fastest skier. Michael also competes at the highest level in track and cycling events. He has walked the Kokoda Track and has climbed to the summit of Africa’s highest point on Mount Kilimanjaro. In 2007, Michael was the ACT Australian of the Year.
Chin Jin is a Chinese-born Australian living in NSW Australia since 1988. He has been active in the overseas Chinese democratic movement since early 1989 and joined the Federation for a Democratic China, set up in the wake of the Tiananmen Square Incident. He is an MA graduate of the University of Western Sydney, and has written widely on Human Rights and the political structure of China. In 2003 Chin Jin raised national attention in Australia as he was redirected to the soundproof gallery of Parliament House when the Chinese president Hu Jintao addressed Parliament. He was host of the International Conference on Chinese Democracy held in Sydney, Australia in 2005. He also hosted the Dalai Lama's address to the Chinese Diaspora in 2007. Most recently he has toured Japan in April to deliver a speech titled: Political and military clout of autocratic China over its neighbouring countries.
Against:
Paul Monk is co-founder and executive director of Austhink Consulting, author of Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China (2005) and was a Lecturer in Chinese Politics at La Trobe University in 1999. He is a former East Asia analyst for the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), where he became head of the China desk and chairman of the inter-agency analysts working group on China.
Simon Balderstone AM is an IOC adviser; and former General Manager and Board member SOCOG. He was a member of Australia’s first expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1984. He was an adviser to the former Minister of the Environment, Graham Richardson, and an adviser to Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. He became General Manager of the Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee and a SOCOG board member.
Hamish McDonald has spent twenty of his thirty-five years in journalism based in Asia - in Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, India and in China where he was the correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald based in Beijing. He is currently the Asia-Pacific editor for The Sydney Morning Herald. He has been political editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is the author of several books.
