Be patient with China.Any contact of this kind will help in the spread of liberalism which is already blowing there however faintly.You cannot expect it to become a tornado in such a short time not after its any years of authoritarian life.
We arent exactly the best example of the perfect democratic and free country we like to imagine.Take a close look around in our own backyard. What seems miniscule is what China would see magnified many times.So lets be patient.Things are beginning to improve.

socratease

How very "nice" to use the innocuous word "policies" to include by implication the PRC's human organ harvesting atrocities, "brutal, horrifying, gross, systematic and widespread".

How very "nice" to say "(difference) in an authoritatian state" when such "difference" includes these monsterous crimes against humanity.
"organharvestinvestigation.net" refers.

It seems that not only Dame Edna, champion of "niceness", could be so blind as to close her tiny conscience to the screams of the utterly abject victims. I pray that we Australians and our descendants will not be held to account for our complicity, although our shame is conspicuous.

Gary of Mentone
I thought we were asked to comment on the global olympic spirit.
There are two separate issues here.Even a totalitarian country with a horrible human rights record can have citizens that dont subscribe to the political shennanigans of the country but can compete in a sporting way.Even a country like China can make possible an event that draws athletes from all over the world to compete together in a friendly way and that is how the spirit of the olympics can spread abroad. China mihght even find that spirit to free up its cold inhuman attitudes slowly...only slowly,though. You cannot ezxpect a country that has ingrained and embedded totalitarian attitudes to mellow over night.Come on,be reasonable.

People like you are never willing to see the possibilities.You live for division.In your life do you have any secrtet attitudes you keep hidden? You want to get rid of them but it would take the attitudes of others to help you unconsciously to get rid of them or you'll never will.

socratease

What does it say about us as a society when - despite our high-handed moral posturing on such matters - we send much of our manufacturing and natural resources to China and gladly import their goods in return?

It's a bit odd to criticise somebody while clamouring for their dollars.

The basic Human Rights are the right to -
1. Food
2. Shelter and
3. Medical assistance

Sad, but everything else is negotiable.

Rache
Food,shelter and medical assistance,eh?
All Australians have an inalienable right to these three things noted. At a price.As a result some get it some dont. How do our aborigines fare?
lets not get too pious.The thread didnt offer any leads into political duelling over human rights but human participation in physical prowess and the spirit they should be competed in.Keep to the point.

Whatever the political shortcomings not every Chinese sportsman and sportswoman is guilty as branded and none of them cam do a thing about their lot.

Run a thread about violatons of human rights by all means but this blog isnt the place to do it.It demands otherissues.

socratease