Representatives Ask Rice About ‘Consular Emergencies’ During Beijing Olympics

Last month, three members of Congress — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of  Florida, Ray Lahood of Illinois, and Darlene Hooley of Oregon —  anticipating just how ugly things could will get if  when U.S. citizens protest during this year’s Olympics in Beijing, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ask what instructions  she had given to our  diplomats in China  about “consular emergencies” during the games.  The members also broached the sensitive subject of whether State should issue a travel advisory for Americans traveling to Beijing this summer.

The members  also wondered about reports that the British Olympic Committee agreed to a Chinese “gag order.”   They want to know what Rice plans to do to protect the free speech of our athletes. 

(OFK note: A gag order seems exceptionally dumb.  It’s superfluous where it can be enforced and nothing but an impotent source of bad publicity where it can’t.   Is China asserting the extraterritorial jurisdiction of its censorship  over our athletes  here in the United States?  Does it expect  other countries’  subjects or officials to help enforce it?  Do we really think we could  give extraterritorial effect to the  First Amendment  in Beijing?  ChiCom commissars and U.S. athletes  need to understand some realities.   Americans love publicity and we’re used to saying whatever we damn well please.   We don’t always  lose those habits when we clear customs and the laws change.   The ChiComs, on the other hand, love to beat, imprison, massacre, or  drive tanks over people for that sort of thing.   American athletes really can say whatever they please while they’re on  U.S. soil.  That leaves the Chinese with two options:  ingore it and let it blow over, or deny  the offending athlete a  visa and bring down even more bad publicity on themselves.  Once they’re on Chinese soil, however, the athletes  speak at their own  peril, albeit far less peril than if a Chinese person were to do it.   Everyone  is on full notice.)

In any event, Rice never answered, so naturally, someone leaked the letter to me.  Wanna read the whole thing?  You know you do:  letter-to-s-rice.pdf

I’m sure this quote will get someone’s attention:

We also have special concern for the treatment of U.S. citizens of Asian ethnicity in cases of detention in China. Beijing authorities have demonstrated in the past an inclination to engage in racial profiling towards U.S. citizens in custody. They tend, frankly, to treat U.S. citizens of their own ethnicity far more harshly.

Like I said, a real P.R. disaster, and it couldn’t happen to more deserving people.