On China, The Olympics and Human Rights

WASHINGTON — As China prepares to host the summer Olympic Games in August, human rights activists are decrying the country's communist-led government for rounding up dissidents, trampling on press freedoms and abusing workers.

Minky Worden, media director for Human Rights Watch in New York, is editor of a new book, "China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges."

She spoke with Cox Newspapers correspondent Bob Deans. Excerpts follow:

Q: China promised human rights improvements as part of its bid to host the Olympic Games. We're less than three months away from opening ceremonies. Has Beijing kept its promise?

WORDEN: The short answer is no. There is still time for the Chinese leaders to keep some of the promises that they made, for example, to allow complete freedom for international journalists to report. Even before the crisis in Tibet, that particular promise was not being fully honored. Journalists were being harassed, beaten, detained and they were unable to cover sensitive issues like Tibet or to interview family members of dissidents. Since the crisis in Tibet that region has been closed both to journalists and to international human rights investigation.

Q. Is it possible to talk about a couple other categories of human rights abuse in general?

WORDEN: There are a number of human rights abuses today in China that are caused by the Olympics. Those are forced evictions without compensation, abuses of migrant laborers — including to build Olympics venues — and the biggest and most obvious one is the lock-down of the entire human rights and civil society community in Beijing.

Q. In a fascinating chapter, The Ghosts of Olympics Past, the book recounts Olympian human rights debacles: the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany; the 1980 Games in Moscow; even the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, when black men — allegedly gang members — were rounded up and jailed en masse. Is there a historical precedent for what we're about to witness in Beijing?

WORDEN: One of the frequent claims by the leaders of the International Olympic Committee is that politics and sports need to be separated. The reasons that the Chinese government wants to host the games are essentially political: it will bolster domestic and international legitimacy for the Chinese government. You court trouble in giving the Games to human rights abusing countries. This is a unique opportunity to encourage China to live up to its promises.

Q. Should the United States boycott the games?

WORDEN: No ... world leaders should condition their attendance at the opening ceremonies of the Games on specific human rights improvements.

Q. Nearly 20 years have passed since the bloody military crackdown on demonstrators near Tiananmen Square. How much will that bloodshed be recalled — officially or otherwise — during the Beijing Olympics?

WORDEN: Some of the Olympic events will be held in Tiananmen Square. But students today in universities in China are unaware of the protests. And the fact that a number of Tiananmen-era protesters are still in prison shows that the Chinese leadership has not fully dealt with the shadow of Tiananmen. These are people it would be very easy for the Chinese government to release. It would certainly go some way to addressing the legacy of Tiananmen Square.

Q. Should Americans be buying goods made in China? Or should we not buy Chinese goods until Beijing gets serious about improving human rights?

WORDEN: It would not be advisable to boycott goods from China, because this goes to people's livelihood. The people of China, and their economic work product, is not the same thing as the government of China. But where the economic leverage does exist is with the Olympic games sponsors. It's very much in the interest of these companies to emphasize the rule of law, the development of the legal system and improving human rights.

Q. You speak Cantonese, one of the two dominant dialects in China. So, let's close with a little Chinese lesson. There is a Chinese word weiji, which some have used to characterize the Beijing Olympics. I understand it's written with two characters that mean "danger" and "opportunity." Tell us what that means and what it represents to the people of China.

WORDEN: Everyone who cares about the future of China sees the opportunity and recognizes the risk if human rights are not a central part of the Olympics. The foot that China puts forth to the world could be a very positive one. The spotlight will be on China. There will be 30,000 journalists fanning out across the country, so that if human rights are not respected there will be much greater potential for that to be on display as well.