Should China Even Be Hosting The Olympics? (A Recap Of 'The Economist's Article)

has archived cases where citizens have been incarcerated time and again, when expressing a viewpoint opposite to that of the ruling power.

The Chinese Government has played the fear card quite strategically; it has denied entry to many Tibetans citing the reason of terrorist threats. The real rationale of course is the fact that it intends to avoid any protests from the Dalai Lama’s supporters from Tibet, when the entire globe’s attention is on the country. 

The underlying theme of the Chinese Government is still ‘Non-Interference’. China still voted against United Nation’s sanction against Zimbabwe and it also opposed the international criminal court’s actions against the Sudan’s policy of genocide. It has never been very keen on persuading North Korea to move towards disarming nuclear warheads either. Quite clearly, it supports non-interference of external justice organizations into a country’s political power, even in cases when such interference is necessary. 

Such issues bring to the table, an interesting question? Is China justified to host the Olympics when its actions might violate one of the most important themes of the very event? 

Freedom of Information: The Chinese Government has been meticulously cautious in allowing freedom of information to its citizens, and even worse, the media has not been independent from the Government. The media have always been kept on a tight leash. Freedom of media is one of the most important aspects of democratic Governance.

The Chinese public indeed feels the government intrusion every day when they access the internet. Until very recently Wikipedia had been proscribed by the ruling power; so were sections of Google and Playboy. The filters delete information posted by the citizens regarding certain events inside China, thus acting as a barricade for free flow of information across the country. 

The ingenious Chinese youth have found their way around the filters by a simple manipulation (using vertical Chinese scripts instead of horizontal ones, open it in PDF and rotate the page to read it). In the event of Olympics, the Government allowed access to Wikipedia, and for some unexplained reason, Playboy, to its citizens (no one is complaining though).

Environmental Sustainability:   China is the second biggest contributor to climate change (CO₂

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