The Olympics, China, and N. Korean Refugees

Update: Another call to boycott the Beijing Olympics:

Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar called Monday for the world to boycott this year’s Beijing Olympics over what they said was China’s continuing support of Myanmar’s military dictatorship.

The 88 Generation Students group, which was instrumental in last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, urged “citizens around the world … to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics in response to China’s bankrolling of the military junta that rules our country of Burma with guns and threats.” Myanmar is also known as Burma. [. . . .]

“Our constructive outreach to China has been met with silence and more weapons shipments,” the group said in a statement. [AP, Mick Elmore]

– End update –

Barbara Demick has returned to the L.A. Times after (so I hear) a long sabbatical. Demick’s work is a welcome exception to the bland and banal work we see from so many of her peers because of her interest in the humanitarian story, particularly the miserable existence of North Korean refugees. The humanitarian story is the submerged part of the North Korean iceberg that too many journalists, such as the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, can’t seem to see. Yet it’s the part of the story that gives everything else about North Korea its proper context.

As the 2008 Olympic games approach, international pressure is rightly rising against China over its behavior in the Sudan. Demick reports on how that pressure is also rising over China’s reprehensible treatment of North Korean refugees:

“These Olympics are just about the most important international event in Chinese history. If they want to brag to the world about what a safe and stable place China is, they have to do something for the refugees,” said Do Hee-youn, who runs a fund for North Korean defectors in Seoul.

As many as 100,000 North Koreans are thought to be hiding in China, including dozens in foreign embassies and at the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Beijing.

The North Koreans have won sympathy in foreign capitals, from Tokyo to Washington, especially among Christian groups. Activists held nearly simultaneous demonstrations Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 in front of all the Chinese consular offices in the U.S., calling for a boycott of the Olympics over the North Korean issue. [L.A. Times, Barbara Demick]

Strictly speaking, those demonstrations weren’t about the Olympics, but looking at this YouTube video, you could easily conclude otherwise:

Demick’s story continues:

There are some indications that the Chinese are paying heed. In December, they unexpectedly released Yu Sang-jun, a defector who had become an activist. Caught guiding refugees to the border, he was held for less than four months, a short stay compared with the years-long sentences doled out to others who did the same.

In Seoul, activists say that 40 North Koreans who have sought asylum in embassies in Beijing might soon be given safe passage by the Chinese government to leave for South Korea. The South Korean Constitution gives all North Koreans the right of citizenship.

Some commenters here have questioned the sincerity of Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal from participation in the Beijing Olympics. I agree that Spielberg’s criticism of China is irreconcilable with some of his other views, as described in my comments section. But I also think it’s possible to agree that Spielberg is right about Darfur without acknowledging him as a supreme moral authority. That’s how alliances are made and votes are cast. There are plenty of good reasons to stay away from Beijing. In the end, what matters is that China’s rulers see the financial price of their odious behavior. They will see that clearly if the Beijing Olympics are an expensive flop.

At the same time, the humiliation of China through the exposure of its brutality didn’t begin with the Olympics, and won’t end there, either:

“At best, they’ll put on a public relations show for the Olympics,” activist Tim Peters said. “But it won’t be anything more than smoke and mirrors.”