China's leaders steer Games wrong way

By Christine Brennan - USA TODAY
August 07, 2008

The popular notion is that the story of the Beijing Olympic Games begins this Friday night, 8.8.08, as the saying goes, with the opening ceremony in the glowing-red Bird's Nest.

But that's not entirely true. The history of China's efforts to host the Games is already being written -- some chapters, in fact, are already completed -- and, so far, the plot line looks terrible for the Chinese.

If it weren't so sad, it would be almost comical, how China's leaders are trying to sabotage their own Olympic legacy. They were supposed to free dissidents. Instead, they jailed more. They said their air would be clean. But it looks like pea soup.

Things didn't get better in Tibet. They didn't get better in Sudan's Darfur. They didn't get better for the workers in China.

Journalists were promised they could carry out their work unfettered. Then the government blocked troublesome Internet sites in the press center.

Finally, in what might be their most outrageous act yet (there's still plenty of time for more), Chinese officials revoked the visa of Joey Cheek, one of the world's most charitable Olympians, banning him from the country because of his humanitarian work as co-founder of Team Darfur.

The problem with China is not its people, but its leaders. It's not one country, but two. There's the deferential, white-glove-wearing, efficient nation of 1.3 billion that just might put on the most awe-inspiring Olympics in memory.

There's also heavy-handed official China, the one doing all that damage to its people's good name. The government might as well be the smog that rolls in each day, obscuring the stunning venues, the first-class organization and the simple acts of kindness of tens of thousands of volunteers. You get the feeling it can't help itself. At a time when it so wants to join the rest of the world, when it craves being discovered and admired, it reverts to its Mao default setting.

After decades of Games held in the most agreeable places -- Calgary, Barcelona, Sydney -- we're in uncharted territory here. But it's already clear that the worst thing national Olympic committees and their athletes can do over the next 2½ weeks is to acquiesce to the Chinese leadership's outrageous positions rather than hold true to the values of their homeland because they want to be good guests.

The U.S. Olympic Committee took a few dangerous steps in that direction Wednesday when, in a previously scheduled news conference, its leaders failed to strongly stand up for Cheek, who not only was one of their own just 2½ years ago, he was so beloved he was selected to carry the U.S. flag in the 2006 closing ceremony.

Choosing his words as if he thought Chinese President Hu Jintao had sneaked into the back row to eavesdrop, USOC CEO Jim Scherr gave a lukewarm defense of Cheek: "It is unfortunate, but it's between this government and Joey as a private citizen."

No "We stand with Joey." Not a hint of "He's ours, and he's to be lauded for his efforts." No, just Citizen Cheek.

The USOC is not a political organization, but it does represent a country of many freedoms, and it must do better than that in the next 2½ weeks.

Its leaders would do well to follow the example of the U.S. athletes, who picked as their flag bearer a 1,500-meter runner who fled Sudan at 6 and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for 10 years before settling in the United States.

Lopez Lomong also happens to be an outspoken member of Cheek's Team Darfur, saying if he won a medal in China, he would "hold an American flag and a Sudan flag" on the medal stand. That would be a perfect political statement, the kind the Chinese government and its accomplices in the International Olympic Committee have railed against for years.

That didn't bother the U.S. team captains who voted for the flag bearer. They could have hidden Lomong. Instead, they asked him to lead them into the stadium.

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