The Olympics Tyranny Problem

The 2008 Olympics are being held in China this year, an authoritarian state whose control over its citizens is evidenced by this video:

and...

Clearly they aren't mad over sour milk, rather the hard stance policy towards Tibet.

Matthew Continetti, from The Weekly Standard gives China a gold medal in tyranny.

In July 2001, when the International Olympics Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 summer games to Beijing, the international community began a thought-experiment. Wouldn't holding the games in China give the world's democracies "leverage" over that country's Communist dictatorship? Wouldn't the increased media attention and "scrutiny" force Beijing to relax its security apparatus and increase civil liberties? Wouldn't the Olympics be just another elevation in China's "peaceful rise" to "responsible stakeholder," great-power status?

Seven years later, we have our answer. It is a resounding "No." Over the last couple of weeks, riots have broken out in Tibet and surrounding areas and been suppressed by brute force. The State Department's annual report on human rights details an uptick in China's already dismal practices. A prominent Chinese dissident has been put on trial in Beijing on charges of subverting state power. The hypothesis that hosting the Olympics would mellow Beijing's ruthlessness has been proved false. The experiment has failed...

There clearly wasn't a good reason, then, for China's absence from the State Department's list of the worst human rights violators. Surely that absence reflects the same naive view articulated seven years ago during the debate over the awarding of the Olympics; the same facile argument American elites--Democrats and Republicans, academics and bureaucrats, lobbyists and corporate titans--have peddled for two decades: that our economic engagement with China would lead inevitably to political liberalization. This does not seem to be happening, however. Which raises some serious questions about our China policy. Isn't it time we had a grown-up discussion about China's persistent authoritarianism? This summer seems like a pretty good occasion to start it.

The debate should begin now.

China Checklist to Warrant Debate:
Authoritarian Dictatorship
Support for Sudan
Support for Burma
Suppression of citizens
...etc.