Gordon Brown stated today how the election results in Zimbabwe must be released as soon as possible and that he would be speaking to President Mugabe to try and urge him to do so. Yet still he is willing to proudly embrace the Olympic torch in London from a Chinese government severley oppressing the Tibetan population. So why is it that throughout history we have chosen to pick our fights instead of standing up for all people? Why did we invade Iraq twice but sat idly by watching Idi Amin terrorise Uganda in the late 70’s?
We all know the story. When a person comes to power as a result of a civil war or military coup the record shows it never ends well. When Toussaint L’Ouverture routed the British in 1794 he took position as political leader in Saint Domingue. Betrayed by the Americans he was then overthrown and handled the situation so badly it ended up destroying the local population driving them further into the oppression they started with. Another example is Fidel Castro, the freedom fighter who eventually ended up controlling the island of Cuba and in the years of his control crippled its economy. Another dictator Mohamed Farrah Aidid took control of Somalia in the early 90’s and subjected his people to a terrible regime. The list goes on and all it shows is that these men are incapable of running the countries they lead. Of course they are incapable, they are not politicians, they are military men.
But if we are to live in a free world, without oppression and where the might of the west may protect those in need we must not pick and choose where we intervene. These regime’s should not be allowed anywhere, so how can we continue to ignore some but not others? Nicolas Sarkozy is right to boycott the Beijing Olympics and if the politicians of the west have any moral backbone they will follow his lead. How can we justify a war in Iraq for the freedom of its people, yet ignore the oppression imposed in Tibet?
I say stop condemning some and not others, Mugabe must be pressured into allowing the political process to work and the west must take political action against China over Tibet. Military force may not be the answer, but taking a political stance is a must. We must stand by our beliefs and the dream of a free world, no matter the cost and no matter the instigator.
The simple answer is that we can not afford to offend China. 70% of all our imports come from China, they have the fastest growing economy in the world and the largest population. Military intervention could not work as to be honest we would probably lose especially with our forces so over stretched all ready. As for economic sanctions it would have the reverse effect of harming our economy as the rest of the world would continue to trade with them.
I am not in favour of the Chinese ‘government’ but if the leader of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama, has asked people not to boycott then that is good enough for me.
The only way you can ever control countries like China is to ban them from all international arenas, banned from the UN ,not consulted on climate change and industrialisation committees and excluded from any international sporting events they may start to realise that they are not above the law however i doubt it. When will people realise that China is just another Soviet Union, a Capitalist state playing at being Communists.
Thanks for the comment Ben. I agree with a lot of what you are saying and i agree that it is very difficult to control or influence china. I think however that this is only relevant when speaking from a point of view where we assume it is only the UK standing against them. We are not powerful enough to do this, but we are very influential.
China are currently very eager to show themselves as a developing and modernised country. They rely on the outside world as much as we rely on them. It will be economically that the rest of the world will influence them.
I noticed your post was very specific to the issues with china, i just wonder how you feel about the other main point i was making. That it is unacceptable to say that we are intervening with other countries for the good of their people and then taking a seperate policy elsewhere (such as Tibet).
I look forward to hearing more of your views. James.