Boycott is justified, but unlikely by US

Comparisons drawn between the upcoming Olympics in Beijing and the 1936 Olympics in Berlin are almost too easy. We cannot trust the measures taken in preparation by China, such as the relocation of 200 factories and removal of 60,000 buses and taxis from the congested roads. Just as the Nazi agenda held onto its facade of peace, using the Olympics as a debutante ball, China is readying itself for international spectators and scrutiny.

Despite protests, the US ultimately did not boycott the 1936 Olympics. US Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage held pro-Nazi sentiments, alleged a “Jewish-Communist conspiracy” behind boycott motivations, and received a contract for his company to build the Germany embassy after the Olympics.

Similarly, the West has too many business ties to China to criticize them. Labor rights suppression yields cheap goods, covered in toxins for companies who sell them for massive profits.

After all, it’s not hard to come up with reasons to boycott China:

• Eugenic laws, forced/sex-selective abortion, and female infanticide due to the one-child-per-family policy
• Oppression of non-state religious groups (e.g. Falun Gong, Catholicism)
• Criminalization/imprisonment of journalists/activists, lack of press freedom, and censorship (online and off)
• Disproportionate use of the death penalty (~10,000 executions per year, exact number uncertain) and organ harvesting from prisoners
• Dangerous and troubling pollution (400,000 Chinese deaths annually)
• Sweatshop labor in the manufacture of cheap, defective, and unsafe products
• Rampant violence in Tibet [warning: graphic photos, nsfw]
• Major supporter of Sudanese government/militias in Darfur through oil as well as arms and military aircraft
• Sole supporter of the Myanmar regime in Burma

It is unfortunate that the calls for Chinese boycotts, whether for human rights violations or unsafe product recalls, are predominantly split bipartisan. Many people refuse to buy products marked “Made in China” because of xenophobia and McCarthyism fears of Communism, while some who protest for human rights take radical, alienating routes. China should not be boycott because it is Communist, but because it is corrupt and restrictive. All similar regimes should be boycott, as well.

It should be sufficient enough to boycott over the issue of Sudan alone. They have been listed in the US as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1997, but has become almost entirely ignored. Africa is out of sight and out of mind, despite that the Sudanese government is a similar strand of anti-Western Islamic extremism as Osama bin Laden (with rumored ties). There is even oil in Sudan, which generated a revenue of $397.78 million during February 2008, but the US couldn’t care less. It is simply Africa: another lost cause.