The World Watches

IBD Editorials ^ | August 7, 2008

[Kaslin]

China: Beijing's autocrats now complain about criticism of their "internal affairs." We say, get used to it. They asked for the Olympic Games, and now they have to endure the spotlight.

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The 2008 Olympics start Friday not far from the scene of a bloody massacre 19 years ago, when Chinese authorities crushed the Tiananmen Square uprising in the dead of night. We can say this much: There will be no convenient time for brutally crushing protests this time around. Too many are watching the government's every move, around the clock.

China's ruling regime might be thinking, in fact, that it got more than it bargained for when it won the right to host the Games. It seems not fully to understand what happens when you invite the whole world into your country. It clearly wants the world's respect, but doesn't quite get how that respect is earned.

When criticized, bluntly and appropriately, by President Bush for its record of suppressing speech and religion, China could come back only with its usual boilerplate. A Foreign Ministry spokesman declared, "We firmly oppose any words or acts that interfere in other countries' internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues."

It will have to do better than that. And we don't mean finding a more elegant rebuttal to Western critics. The regime needs to bring its actual conduct of "internal affairs" up to a standard shared by the same nations it seeks to impress.

[the anti-liberal]

Well, I at least give props to President Bush for saying something!

[shetlan]

Let the leaking of the morbid begin.

(Go America)

[JimSEA]

"internal affairs"

This term includes China's dealing with not only Taiwan but Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Bhutan, Nepal, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea for a partial list.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping.

[Rembrandt]

Perhaps I’m mistaken but it seems to me, faulty recollection no doubt, that a lot of Chinese money was delivered to Klinton/Gore in 1996. But, of course, that’s not interfering in another country’s INTERNAL AFFAIRS. After all it was Klinton and he had LOTS of affairs so who are we to judge one little itty bitty mad dog commie piece of crap country.

[backhoe]