China Upset Over Olympics Criticism

Says Its Relationship With Sudan Should Not Detract From 2008 Summer Games

(CBS/AP)  China said Thursday that "ulterior" motives were behind some criticism of its actions in Sudan, and the problems there should not be linked with this summer's Olympics in Beijing.

The comments from Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao came a day after director Steven Spielberg's decision to drop out as an Olympics adviser on human rights grounds.

"It is understandable if some people do not understand the Chinese government policy on Darfur, but I am afraid that some people may have ulterior motives, and this we cannot accept," he told a regular news conference.

The Hollywood heavyweight had been brought in as an artistic adviser to the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Games, but said he will not participate because he felt China wasn't doing enough to pressure Sudan into ending the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region.

Chinese officials have consistently said they opposed any attempt to "politicize" the Olympics, which begin Aug. 8.

Liu said China was working with the United Nations to resolve the crisis and providing aid to Sudan. "China is also concerned about the humanitarian issues there, but we have been playing a positive and constructive role in promoting peace in Darfur."

Spielberg had indicated as early as last August that he might not take part in the ceremonies. The director said he had given up hope that China would take a more aggressive approach toward Sudan.

Fighting between government-backed militia and rebels in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and left an estimated 2.5 million displaced since 2003.

China is believed to have special influence with the Islamic regime because it buys two-thirds of the country's oil exports while selling it weapons and defending Khartoum in the U.N. Security Council.

"While China's representatives have conveyed to me that they are working to end the terrible tragedy in Darfur, the grim realities of the suffering continue unabated," Spielberg said in a statement.

Beijing has invested billions of dollars and its national prestige into what it hopes will be a glorious showcase of China's rapid development from impoverished agrarian nation to rising industrial power.

Yet it has been unable to turn back a rising tide of negative global opinion that joins concerns over the city's notorious pollution, snarled traffic and displacement of people for the construction of Olympic venues.

In recent days, the U.S. Congress and a coalition of Nobel Peace Prize winners, politicians and elite athletes have also lobbied Beijing over Darfur.

Actress Mia Farrow and other activists delivered an open letter addressed to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Chinese Mission to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.

[keithle1]

How many times can you say the same thing, kachiusa?

I can''t imagine wanting to go to the Olympics. Awful. Breathing that wonderful air. What would they do if people/students started protesting during the Games?

[gce65]

BOYCOTT the Beijing GENOCIDE OLYMPICS 2008!

[sevenveils]

China continues to put a stranglehold on basic human rights, much less freedoms. The world must realize the mistake that was made in allowing China to trade with FREE nations. This decision was made from greed, and see what greed begot?

[sevenveils]

Sorry China, but all the glitz and glamor of the olympics will not dim China''s nauseating foreign policies, especially those of Sudan and Tibet

FREE TIBET

[rgmiron]

Kachiusa, The USA has a long way to go before we can claim to be perfect, and you did point out, just a few of our faults, we need to work harder, but we are trying. And so are you, I know!!!!!!

[killtheliars]

the U.S. needs to boycott the olympics, cut all relations with China, takre the short term hit when they sell off our bonds, then re-group stop all trade with them and watch as they go back to a diet of rice mixed with dirt. They are the enemy.

[taddles-2009]

"I think china are honest in their foreign policies... way to go asia...

Posted by obamagrls-bf at 10:56 AM : Feb 14, 2008"

LOL...now that''s the funniest post of the day. I''m amazed you were able to string "China" and "Honest" together in a sentence like that, probably the first time it''s ever been done.

I particularly like the honest Chinese business policy about stealing every piece of foreign technology and copying it or perhaps the policy of sending students to American university''s with the express intent to steal information (went to school with a couple of those guys, they were a barrel of fun. Oh, how about that quaint little Chinese policy of replacing real materials with ones that kind of look like the real ones...say like replacing wheat gluten with melamine in dog food. They are soo funny when they do that don''t you think? Oh, did I mention the honest Chinese policy of taking air samples for the Olympics miles away from the Olympic site so they can pretend that air quality isn''t abhorrently unfit for humans?

Yea, honesty hasn''t been one of China''s strong points in like....well ever.

[taddles-2009]

"It is understandable if some people do not understand the Chinese government policy on Darfur"


What''s not to understand? You take their oil and leave them to rot...pretty easy policy actually.

The fact that China has a represive brutal government that abuses it''s power in Asia by stealing what it wants from it''s neighbors and polluting everything it touches is no reason to criticize.

Ok maybe that whole "we can destroy the environment if we want to because we have nukes that says we can" and the bit about "Tibet is really china and to prove it we are going to kill everyone there" and perhaps that whole thing about "if anyone speaks out against the government we will kill them and their family", perhaps those kinds of things might warrant a wee bit of criticism.

[tucano2]

The New China News Agency, as with the NY Times, Washington Post, CBS, and so on typically support whatever the Peoples Republic of China does or doesn''t do. From time to time a little bit of critique creeps in as a sop to intelligent people. The PRC just does not yet quite understand how to identify the "friends" from the "critics". The PRC behaves in the media pretty much the same way whatever American Administration behaves; that is to say, BADLY.

[shuggie55]

Spielberg has an opinion. He feels that China isn''t doing enough for human rights. He''s taking a stand for what he beleives in. At least he''s not hurting anyone. But what the human rights that China doesn''t show to their own people? Now that would make more sense to me - if Speilberg spoke out about that. But then again - look at the American Government - we treat our poor and disabiled pretty bad too!

[cbs_oliver]

6. It''s all about Sudan''s strategic location

7. The backers and founders of the "Save Darfur" movement are the well-connected and well-funded U.S. foreign policy elite.

8. None of the funds raised by the "Save Darfur Coalition", the flagship of the "Save Darfur Movement" go to help needy Africans on the ground in Darfur, according to stories in both the Washington Post and the New York Times.

9. "Save Darfur" partisans in the U.S. are not interested in political negotiations to end the conflict in Darfur.

10. Blackwater and other U.S. mercenary contractors, the unofficial armed wings of the Republican party and the Pentagon are eagerly pitching their services as part of the solution to the Darfur crisis.

There is reason to be concerned that the whole story is not being told and that objectives other than compassion may be deciding.

[cbs_oliver]

Here''s another point of view:

From "Ten reasons to suspect "Save Darfur" is a PR scam"

Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust U.S.-backed or U.S.-led military intervention in Western Sudan.

In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present ten reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign is a PR scam to justify U.S. intervention in Africa.

1. It wouldn''t be the first Big Lie our government and media elite told us to justify a war.

2. It wouldn''t even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite employed "genocide prevention" as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.

3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?

4. It''s all about Sudanese oil.

5. It''s all about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic and other natural resources.

[gunownerdan]

Even Nazi Germany had the olympics so why can''t communist China have theirs?

[zykracosmos]

While I am a fan of Spielberg and I agree with his stance on global humanitarian issues, the Olympics is the Olympics, and efforts to pressure the host country to change their activities around the world as a precursor to participation in the Olympics has always been ineffective, and it hurts the people who are and should be in the spotlight- the athletes. The time to protest Chinese international policies is before they get the bid to host the games, not afterwards. Remember Hitler hosted the games and had to endure watching a black man beat his ace track star. Jimmy Carter punished American Olympians over Russia''s involvement in Afghanistan. Are future American host cities to be punished because of Bush''s war in Iraq?