Obama urges Bush Beijing boycott

Barack Obama has urged US President George W Bush to consider a boycott of the
opening of the Beijing Olympics unless China’s rights record improves.

The Democratic presidential hopeful made his call a day after a similar appeal by his rival, Hillary Clinton.

The US stage of the Olympic torch relay passed off amid confusion and tight security in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The route was changed at the last minute and the closing ceremony took place on a motorway fly-over.

Throughout the route, the torch-bearers were immersed in a cocoon of security, surrounded by dozens of police officers and track-suited Chinese guards.

The Olympic flame was lit in Greece on 24 March and is being relayed through 20 countries before being carried into the opening ceremony in Beijing on 8 August.

Demonstrators sought to disrupt the torch relay in Athens, Istanbul, Paris and London, while it passed successfully through Almaty, in Kazakhstan, and St Petersburg, in Russia.

It is due to arrive in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, later this week.

However, the International Olympic Committee is meeting in Beijing to consider calling off the rest of the torch’s 136,788-km (85,000-mile) journey.

Dalai Lama to speak

Mr Obama said President Bush should boycott the opening ceremony if China failed to take steps to improve human rights in Tibet or help to end the alleged genocide in Darfur, in Sudan.

"A boycott of the opening ceremonies should be firmly on the table but this decision should be made closer to the Games [in August]," he said in a statement.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mrs Clinton said Mr Bush should not attend the ceremony without "major changes by the Chinese government" over Tibet and Darfur.

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a motion condemning China’s "extreme" response to protests in Tibet.

Mr Bush himself called on the Chinese government to begin a dialogue with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama, who is due in Tokyo en route to the US, is expected to give his reaction to the torch protests at a news conference shortly.

A spokeswoman for UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not be attending the opening ceremonies, and had never intended to do so. However, he will be at the closing ceremony.

Whisked away

Thousands of spectators had been waiting hours to see the torch pass through San Francisco and demonstrators were out in force along the waterfront relay route.

But immediately after the torch was lit, the torch-bearers turned into a warehouse building, disappearing for an hour.

They reappeared at a new starting-point across the city where it was handed to two runners, away from the protesters.

The planned waterfront closing ceremony in Justin Herman Plaza was moved to a motorway fly-over.

"We assessed the situation and felt that we could not secure the torch and protect the protesters and supporters to the degree that we wished," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told Reuters news agency.

In Paris, the torch had to be extinguished three times, while in London there were 37 arrests.

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Gordon Brown appears to have solved the dilemma on whether to join fellow Western leaders in boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics: he has decided that he was never going to go in the first place.

Downing Street "confirmed" last night that the Prime Minister did not plan to attend the ceremony on August 8. Like Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and, possibly, President Bush, he will be staying away.

Unlike his peers, however, he will not be boycotting the ceremony in protest against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. A Downing Street spokeswoman said that Mr Brown had never said that he would go. "There is no change in our position," she said.

Having accepted an invitation during a visit to China in January, Mr Brown will be in Beijing 16 days later, for the closing ceremony when London picks up the Olympic baton from the 2008 hosts.
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For Mr Brown’s critics, however, it was either a fudge – or a gold medal U-turn.

Downing Street said that Mr Brown’s spokesman had made his position clear during a lobby briefing on March 19 but it was overshadowed by the news that he was planning to meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s long-exiled spiritual leader.

Mr Brown was less clear, however, during President Sarkozy’s recent state visit and at a Downing Street press conference last week, when he was asked about the French leader’s boycott threat. He said: "I think President Sarkozy said himself that he expected Britain, because we are going to host the next Olympics, to be present at the Olympic ceremonies and I will certainly be there."

The problem is that Mr Brown may be seen to have snubbed the Chinese, who reportedly expected him at both the opening and closing ceremonies, although Downing Street said today that he had spoken directly to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao about his travel plans.

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said last night that No 10 should have made the situation clear in the first place.

He told the BBC: "Chancellor Merkel in Germany and President Sarkozy in France saying quite specifically that they might not go to the opening ceremony shows that the debate has always been about the opening ceremony.

"So now suddenly to be asked to believe by No 10 that they never really intended to go in the first place either smacks of a rather odd way of going about things or just downright incompetence."

Curiously, as the global torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games was dogged by protests, the only international voice raised in support of the Chinese was that of the Dalai Lama.

Starting his first foreign trip since unrest broke out in Tibet on the 49th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent him into exile in India, the Dalai Lama said that he had personally urged the Tibetan community to respect the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco.

Speaking to reporters on a brief stopover in Japan, he jokingly put his fingers over his head in the shape of a devil’s horns and said: “I really feel sad the government there almost demonises me. But it’s OK. I’m just a human being - hopefully not a demon."

He added "Some people create (the) impression we are anti-Chinese. So I make an appeal to Chinese brothers and sisters all over the world, particularly in mainland China - firstly we are not anti-Chinese."

The Dalai Lama repeated that he was not seeking independence for Tibet but autonomy and cultural freedoms within China for the Buddhist Himalayan territory.

“I support the Chinese host for the world game because China is the most populous nation, ancient nation,” the Dalai Lama said, adding that the Chinese "really deserve” the Olympics.

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Free Tibet Campaign urging public figures to stay away

Prince Charles won’t be going to Beijing in August. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The Prince of Wales’ decision not to attend the Beijing Olympics is being used as the launchpad for an international campaign to persuade public figures to boycott the games.

Prince Charles has confirmed to the London-based Free Tibet Campaign that he has no plans to attend the opening ceremony in the Chinese capital. The Prince has not received a formal invitation but has recently been courted by the Chinese Ambassador in London in a bid to improve relations.

Prince Charles’ public support for the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s independent spiritual leader, and his disparaging remarks about Chinese officials at the handover of Hong Kong have been a public embarrassment for Beijing. In leaked diaries, written during in 1997, the Prince notoriously referred to senior Chinese officials as "appalling old waxworks".

The Free Tibet Campaign, which opposes the Chinese occupation of the Himalyan country, is not calling for athletes to stay away from the summer’s Olympics. But it is hoping to encourage public figures to declare that they will stay away in protest at human rights abuses and China’s refusal to grant Tibet independence.

"We are not calling for any sort of boycott by the athletes, they have been training for years," said Anne Holmes, director of the Free Tibet Campaign. "What we would like to see is as many as possible high profile public figures making a principled decision to stop at home - and watch it on TV. We would hope this would include Gordon Brown, who has been invited to go back to Beijing for the Olympics. We can’t say what Prince Charles is thinking but Clarence House [the Prince’s London residence] has written back to us to confirm that he is still very friendly towards Tibet."

The Prince has met the Dalai Lama several times. In a letter to the campaign, Clive Alderton, his deputy private secretary, confirmed the Prince would not attend the opening ceremony. "As you know, His Royal Highness has long taken a close interest in Tibet and indeed has been pleased to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on several occasions," he wrote. "You asked if the Prince of Wales would be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. His Royal Highness will not be attending the ceremony."

Publication of the letter is likely to be regretted by the government, which has attempted to build strong economic and cultural ties with the China. A spokeswoman for Clarence House told The Guardian yesterday: "There are no current plans for [the Prince] to go to the Olympics. As a rule he doesn’t attend. He went when the Princess Royal was competing in Montreal in 1976. The Prince of Wales … takes an interest in the siuation in Tibet and he hopes as long term peaceful solution will be reached after some dialogue."

Both Princess Anne, who is president of the British Olympic Association, and Prince Edward are likely to go to Beijing.

Last month Tibetan exiles failed to convince the International Olympic Committee that they should allow their athletes to compete as an independent national team under the title ’Team Tibet’. The country has been occupied by Chinese troops since 1950.

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British FM opposes Beijing Olympics boycott

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband reiterated on Saturday his opposition against a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games this summer.

"I do not support an Olympic boycott. I do support engagement with China on the need to work together internationally to nurture the potential gains of globalization," Miliband said on his blog upon his six-day visit to China.

"China depends on that cooperation; so do we," Miliband wrote. The 29th Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing in August this year.

"I am immensely looking forward to my visit, which I expect to be instructive, thought-provoking and inspiring in equal measure," he said on the blog. Miliband’s visit to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing will begin on Sunday.

"My aims are simple: to try to understand the country better, to compare notes on the challenges of equality, security and sustainability in our two countries, and to forge relationships that foster Anglo-Chinese cooperation at an international level in the pursuit of shared goals," he concluded.

The British foreign secretary made clear his position last week, saying boycotting the Beijing Olympics is not the right path to take.

"We are ever excited about prospects for the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing," Miliband told Chinese reporters in London Wednesday.

"Everything we have seen and read suggests that preparations are proceeding in an excellent way. We very much look forward to a very successful Olympics, successful for China and successful for the world. We certainly believe that boycotts are not a right way, " he said.

Miliband’s comments echoed many athletes’ voices of refusing to boycott the Olympics. The former Olympic champion Linford Christie said boycotting the Beijing Olympics is an unfair demand to make on those who have dedicated their lives to competing in Beijing.

"Athletes have one chance every four years to compete at the Olympics and they should be allowed to do that," said Christie, who won 100m gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Christie criticized those who pursue a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games as "very hypocritical," saying they "condemn China but all use Chinese electrical goods."

Meanwhile, a recent poll said a large majority of the British public believe it would be wrong for British sportsmen and sportswomen to boycott the Beijing Olympics.

According to the Guardian/ICM poll published on Friday, 72 percent of the surveyed agreed the British team should attend this summer’s Games in Beijing.

The ICM polled a random sample of 1,003 adults aged over 18 from around Britain.

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, an aide has said.

The decision was due to "schedule issues" and had been made months ago, said UN spokeswoman, Marie Mukabe.

Meanwhile, Buenos Aires is braced for Friday’s Olympic torch relay after anti-China protests in other cities.

Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai has withdrawn from the torch relay’s Tanzanian leg, due to concerns over human rights in China.

The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan said the UN was anxious not to give the impression that Mr Ban’s absence was a boycott of the Games.

Ms Mukabe said Mr Ban "had conveyed to the [Chinese] government some months ago that he may not be in a position to accept the invitation to attend this important event due to schedule issues".

This means the decision was made before violent anti-Beijing protests in and around Tibet last month that were suppressed by a heavy security presence.

Security cocoon

The Olympic flame is being relayed around the world through 20 countries before it arrives in Beijing in August for the Games’ opening ceremony.

The torch’s progress has been beset by protests - especially on the London, Paris and San Francisco legs of its tour.

Several thousand police and other guards are to line the planned 13km (eight mile) route of the torch through Buenos Aires.

Argentine activists say their protests will be peaceful but have promised "surprises".

Groups upset over China’s human rights record have been trying to put pressure on Beijing as it readies to host the Olympics for the first time.

The protests along the international torch route have meant that torch-bearers have been immersed in a cocoon of security, surrounded by dozens of police officers and Chinese guards in blue track-suits.

In Paris, the torch had to be extinguished three times because of safety concerns, while in London there were 37 arrests.

The US stage of the torch relay in San Francisco on Wednesday passed off amid confusion and tight security.

The Dalai Lama - who many Tibetans regard as their spiritual leader - said on Thursday that China deserved to host the Games, but that protesters had the right to express themselves in non-violent ways.

The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge, said on Thursday that anti-China protests had created a "crisis" but that the Games in Beijing would "rebound".

He also urged China to respect its "moral engagement" to improve human rights ahead of the Games.

China said it hoped the IOC would steer clear of what it called "irrelevant political factors".

Beijing says Tibet is an integral part of China and what happens there is an internal matter.

After its run through Buenos Aires, the torch will be flown to Tanzania for the next stage of its journey.

2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai told Kenyan TV that she was pulling out of that leg of the relay over concern about "the events that have been unfolding in Tibet for a very long time".

She said she still supported China hosting the Games, but wanted " to see a country that is challenged, [that] is addressing those challenges to the betterment of the environment and the world in general."

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday rejected the idea of boycotting the Beijing Olympics as ineffective, but said she was open to another meeting with the Dalai Lama despite China’s protests against her meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader last year.

Merkel, in Oslo to attend the opening of the new national Opera House, said she would not attend the opening of the 2008 Summer Games in China because it had never been on her schedule.

"I do not think we should boycott the whole Olympics, we have seen that did not work," said Merkel, whose comments in German were translated into Norwegian by an interpreter. The chancellor said Western nations’ decision to stay away from the 1980 games in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had little impact.

"And I never planned to participate in the opening," she said, adding that the minister of sports was designated to represent Germany in Beijing. She said countries needed to find other ways to discuss issues such as human rights and Tibet policy with China.

China harshly criticized Merkel for receiving the Dalai Lama at her chancellory in September. Beijing broke off several meetings with German diplomats, and more normal relations were restored only after several months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Merkel stood by her decision to become the first German leader to receive the Dalai Lama, defending the visit as that of a foreign religious leader.

Merkel said she was ready to meet the Dalai Lama again, but was scheduled to be on a trip to LatinAmerica during the religious leader’s next planned visit to Germany.

Though she has not set plans to meet the Dalai Lama again, she said "if I met him one time, I would meet him again. It was not a once in a lifetime thing."

Merkel appeared with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg at a brief news conference at the Munch Museum in Oslo, which the chancellor said she had asked to visit because she enjoys the work of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.

Stoltenberg and Merkel said they discussed ways to combat climate damaging emissions, their alliance through NATO, efforts to bring peace and order to Afghanistan and industrial cooperation during a meeting ahead of the museum visit.

Merkel is to return to Germany late Saturday, after the opening gala for the opera house.

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The current protests surrounding the Olympic torch are probably just a prelude to much bigger controversies that will ensue as the actual games approach. And to the extent that all these protests put pressure on China to improve its human rights record, that’s a good thing. But using the Olympics as a venue for global politics is obviously not the best thing for the health of the games themselves. Indeed, as Tony Perrottet points out in an op-ed in the New York Times today, the ancient Greeks managed to hold the Olympics every four years for ten centuries, despite near constant warring among the city-states (and with political fights occasionally erupting at the games). The modern Olympics, by contrast, have been canceled three times because of war (1916, 1940, and 1944). And in other times (1980) the games have been diminished by becoming great power proxy fights.

So how is it that the ancient Greeks managed to better insulate their Olympics from geo-politics? The answer is that they didn’t move the venue every four years the way we do. Instead, with one exception, they always held the contests at the religious sanctuary of Olympia, in a politically irrelevant corner of the Peloponnese. Perrottet suggests that we follow the Greek’s example and find a permanent home for the games in some safe little neutral country like Liechtenstein.

The Washington Monthly’s Christina Larson came to the same conclusion four years ago, though in her story, "Movable Feat," she argued for planting the Olympics permanently in its ancient homeland, Greece. As her editor, and a Greek, I obviously agree. And any doubts that Greece has the organizational ability to handle the event were put to rest by the stunning success of the 2004 games in Athens.

I hope the Beijing games go well. But if they don’t, maybe we ought to consider the possibility that the ancient Greeks knew what they were doing.

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The dream of a record equalling fourth Olympics for diver Loudy Wiggins has been shattered by injury at selection trials in Hobart.

Wiggins was officially ruled out of competition for the 10 metre platform event at about 9.30am (AEST) Sunday after straining a calf muscle on her first dive.

Wiggins (nee Tourky) failed to qualify on Friday for a synchronised diving event and is now out of contention for a spot on the Australian team in Beijing.

Virtually inconsolable on the pool deck, Wiggins was attended to by medical staff as time ran out for her to resume competition.

Wiggins remains isolated in a corner of the Hobart Aquatics Centre and has been seen sobbing while she also made a number of phone calls.

Wiggins, who made her Olympic debut as Loudy Tourky in Atlanta in 1996, contested Sydney in 2000 winning bronze with Rebecca Gilmore on the first ever 10 metre synchronised diving event before winning bronze in the individual 10 metre platform in Athens in 2004.

Wiggins, now married to Carlton AFL player Simon Wiggins, was expected to lead Australia’s best divers into these selection trials.

If Wiggins made the Beijing Olympics she would have joined Jenny Donnet as the only other Australian diver to make four Olympic teams.

Executive director of Diving Australia, Mary Godden said the injury to Wiggins was upsetting and the entire diving community was feeling for her.

"She is a wonderful ambassador for diving and Australia and it would have been fitting for her to be part of history competing in Beijing.

"Unfortunately it’s not to be."

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In an election year debate crowded with weighty foreign policy issues and marked by a sharp focus on the diplomatic approaches that Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton would bring to the White House, an unusual flashpoint is beginning to emerge: the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

What began as something of a peripheral campaign issue has quickly turned into something different, with Obama and Clinton both seizing on the issue of boycotting the opening Olympic ceremonies as prima facie evidence of the other’s central flaws.

Clinton was first off the mark to call for a boycott Monday, just days after Obama passed up the opportunity by voicing a reluctance to politicize the games. By Wednesday, Obama had edged closer to Clinton’s position, saying a boycott should be considered, but not until closer to the August opening of the Olympics.

To the Obama campaign, Clinton’s position smacks of something other than a thoughtful approach to human rights issues.

“That was the triumph of politics over sound diplomacy,” said a top Obama foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, in an interview Friday. “The issue — and this is what Sen. Clinton completely missed in her approach — is how do we maximize leverage on the Chinese to achieve the outcomes we want on Tibet, on Darfur and other human rights concerns.

“If President Bush were to say today that he is not going to the opening ceremonies — done, final — then we have squandered every ounce of leverage we possibly have to work with the Chinese to get them to do what we need them to do,” she said.

A Clinton spokesman dismissed the criticism as “curious.”

“As is too often the case, they have failed to take a position and instead chosen words that try to satisfy everyone but actually do very little,” Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said. “Some may disagree with it, but Sen. Clinton has taken a clear stand, while his position is essentially the Olympic equivalent of the ‘present’ vote.”

For an issue newly injected into the Democratic primary, the individual campaign responses have a strikingly familiar feel to them: Clinton colored as ever eager to find political advantage; Obama framed as a talker who dodges tough issues.

Indeed, both camps see much in the current Olympic debate that underscores their long-running criticisms of the opposition.

While Clinton casts China’s failure to deal peacefully with Tibet or pressure Sudan to end genocide in Darfur as “opportunities for presidential leadership,” it did not go unnoticed that her position might have a political component to it, surfacing as it did during the midst of her well-publicized campaign shakeup, on the heels of the widely televised Paris torch relay chaos.

As for Obama, his initial reaction when asked about the controversy was circumspect even by campaign trail standards.

“I’m of two minds about this,” Obama initially told CBS News, when asked for his reaction to the decision of a few world leaders, but not Bush, to stay away from the opening ceremonies. “On the one hand, I think that what’s happened in Tibet, China’s support of the Sudanese government in Darfur, is a real problem. I’m hesitant to make the Olympics a site of political protest, because I think it’s partly about bringing the world together.’”

And as Obama declined several opportunities to embrace a boycott, his refusal to take a hard-line position was second-guessed not just on its foreign policy merits but also for what looked to some critics as a parochial-minded response.

Blogs pointed out that Chicago, his home base, is competing for the 2016 Summer Games and that one of his closest friends and advisers, Valerie Jarrett, is assisting in the city’s bid effort.

By Wednesday night, Obama offered his strongest statement to date, but it was still equivocal.

“If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies,” he said in a statement. A boycott of the opening ceremony “should be firmly on the table, but this decision should be made closer to the Games.”

Rice said Obama reached a “different endpoint” than Clinton.

“Obama is saying, ‘Let’s wait and use it as leverage,’” Rice said. “Sen. Clinton’s failing is to make a politically inspired leap that is politically unsound.”

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, also said this week he would go only if China improved its human rights rhetoric.

It shouldn’t be surprising to see the campaigns battle over the Olympic boycott issue, several political experts said, because the issues involved may speak to working-class voters with long-held antipathy toward China on trade and economic issues.

“Blue collar workers and union members, in particular, are focusing on China as the bad guy,” said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. “It is NAFTA. It is China. And it is easy. It is a political winner, especially in the Democratic primaries. It may be a winner in the fall."

Public opinion, at least at this point, is split. A Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday found 31 percent of voters support Bush boycotting the opening ceremonies, 45 percent opposed and 25 percent undecided.

The escalating debate on the Beijing Olympics follows a tendency of American politicians, starting with the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, to “gain political capital by trashing China,” said Richard Baum, a political science professor and former director of the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Chinese Studies.

“It is tapping into an emotional undercurrent,” Baum said. “Most Americans still have that photo in their minds of the lone civilian holding off the column of tanks, and I think this is intended to jar those images” of Tiananmen Square.

“It is an understandable attempt to mobilize votes for the taking,” he said of the campaign rhetoric, “but it has diplomatic ramifications.”

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The Olympic Torch passed through London and Paris on Sunday and earlier today, and was only snuffed out a few times by protesters: Once with a fire extinguisher. There were near riots and close to a hundred arrests. You know, I’m starting to suspect that some people don’t like the Olympic Torch.

Beijing Olympic Torch Relay

In Paris, some 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and using inline roller skates. Still, police barely stopped the second rush at the torch, and the attempt to extinguish it with water. Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet.”

If it weren’t for the damned handicapped, today Tibet would be free!

Come on, admit it: The Olympic Torch Relay is becoming fun; like an enormous game of Capture the Flag. Note to protesters: You’ve got to create a diversion with the main group, and then have the little kid from the down the street sneak in from behind to grab the torch. Anyway it’s all more interesting than women’s volleyball.

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