Derb again:
At the Olympics, the Maoists will be dealing with free people from free nations, and there is only so much they can do to control them. It's not clear they understand this. They've been living for decades in a bubble of unchallenged power, and are not very imaginative. The opportunities for embarrassment are endless, and the prospect of it very delicious to anyone who loves liberty. Personally, I hope their stinking Olympics is a huge fiasco, and I see encouraging signs it may be.
I wouldn't shed a tear if there was never another Olympics. Not that I care that much, one way or the other, because I don't care about the Olympics, but I think that it demeans the event to hold it in dictatorships. But maybe that's just me. Maybe we ought to have a democratic Olympics. Any country could send a team, but it would never be hosted in a place like China. Or most countries in the Middle East (not that there's much prospect for that).
The Olympics are no big deal to me either. For the record, though - as I've stated previously and here repeat - there is a pattern of major tyrannies falling nine years after hosting a Summer Olympic Games. Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Games and was gone by 1945. The Soviet Union hosted the 1980 Games and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I predict the current Chinese regime will go to join its ancestors in 2017. Light the torch and start the clock!
"Maybe we ought to have a democratic Olympics."
This is exactly how I feel about the United Nations. We should have a U.N. comprised entirely of democracies, and withdraw from the other. Call it "Organization of Free States" or something.
The Chinese have been dealing with large number of westerners for a long time now. There's a huge tourist industry going on and a huge number of contacts between business people. I doubt the Olympics are going to be any big deal for them.
The PRC isn't the Soviet Union circa 1980, it's a rather modern state that's got an ossified leadership structure that will some day implode on them. Until then they're muddling through okay.
Oh, it's a big deal here in China, and not just for the government. You might think the "People's Olympics" tag is BS, but the general population is really pumped about 2008. The 2004 Olympics drew a huge audience here, and there's a lot of pride in how well their athletes did in Athens.
Anyone who thinks that embarrassing China over the Olympics will have any positive effect needs to pull his head out. One might think that making them lose face would be a good thing, but it would only unify the people behind the party.
As for Derb... his use of "Maoist" displays a stunning level of ignorance. The current party line is that Mao was 60% right - they don't say 40% wrong, but it's the same thing. Mao's face is on the money, but this is not a Maoist environment. It isn't Communism. It's barely socialist.