S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT

Nick Gillespie, writing in The World’s Greatest Magazine nails the Chinese Olympics.

Carter’s boycott, done in the name of human rights, accomplished absolutely nothing. I’m willing to say that Bush is a worse president than Carter (who at least deregulated airline ticket pricing and interstate trucking, and invited Willie Nelson to the White House), but it’s Bush who has gotten it right when it comes to superpower-charged Olympics.

To have Bush out there, saying what he’s saying where he’s saying it—and pursuing a larger policy of engagement via trade and other forms of exchange—is absolutely the best way to pull China into something approaching Western-style democracy, complete with robust individual rights and the sort of economy that will ultimately force governments to loosen up. Milton Friedman famously said that as people get richer, they demand the ability to live however they want—that economic freedom, which increases prosperity, helps create the conditions for political freedom. It seems clear that the Chinese government, like all governments, doesn’t want to yield power if it can avoid doing so. It’s also clear that the more a country trades with the world—for goods, services, and even cultural identities—the less its government can control its people. Here’s hoping that the Beijing Olympics, regardless of the predictable and bizarre repressions going on right now to ensure a “stain-free” event, push that process along.

Bush is one of those guys for whom everything always seems to go wrong.  But with his decision to come to China, and to show the Chinese people that they are worthy of the “face” given them by the leader of the most powerful country in the world, he’s demonstrated that, unlike most leaders from Europe, he gets it.  Perhaps it’s because George Bush I was at one time ambassador to China, so there might be so insight and advice there.  Given their allegedly frosty relationship, I doubt this is likely.  I just think, instinctively, he recognizes the value China has in the future of global trade and United States in particular.  As a sinologist professor giving lectures on the BBC once said, he thinks America is the only country in the world that really “gets” China.  Everyone else views it as “a” country, whereas it should be seen as “the” country.

Good day for Bush.  Good day for America.  And now I an going to crawl into my bed and sleep until dinnertime.  This has been, seriously, one of the most fun weekends since I got here.  The odd things is that there are very few tourists.  “You here for the Olympics?” “No, I live here.” Oh, me too.” I got that a LOT tonight.  So while the bars were full it doesn’t give off the sense of impending doom that you get from, say, walking down Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

I’ve basically spent the last three days partying my ass off.  Tomorrow is Sunday, which is the “get your sleep patterns back in place” day.  Otherwise I’m completely screwed come Monday.

Are you serious?  I will agree that Bush’s visit is a diplomatic “win”, but it is hard to consider that it is something other than dumb luck from our intellectual powerhouse of a president.

Honestly, I think his China policies have been the one area where he has, through his entire presidency, been entirely correct.  This began shortly after he came to office, with the Hainan Island incident, where the US spy plane collided with the Chinese fighter.  That was handled perfectly.  Wikipedia explains it well.

The “Letter of the two sorries” was the letter delivered by the United States Ambassador Joseph Prueher to Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan of the People’s Republic of China to defuse the Hainan Island incident in April 2001. The delivery of the letter led to the release of the U.S. crew from Chinese custody, as well as the return of the disassembled plane.

The letter stated that the United States was “very sorry” for the death of Chinese pilot Wang Wei, and they also apologized for not obtaining permission to enter Chinese airspace to perform an emergency landing. Significantly, the United States did not apologize for conducting signals reconnaissance off the coast of China, nor did the United States explicitly accept responsibility for the collision, only expressing that they were sorry for the loss of Wang Wei and “sincere regret over (China’s) missing pilot and aircraft.”

The letter itself was written in English; an official translation into Chinese was not offered by the U.S. government because the Chinese language has several words representing various degrees of “sorry”, and the U.S. government did not want to misrepresent itself by choosing the wrong word. Hence, interpretation of the correct translation of “sorry” was left to the Chinese government

The last part is what nails it for me.  It’s true, Chinese is so contextual that there are numerous words to express sorrow, and they are all situational—junior man/senior man, parent/child, slightly sorry to intense shameful sorrow, that sort of thing.  By delivering the letter in English they scored the diplomatic high ground without kowtowing to the Chinese.

THAT shows a very specific intent and a knowledge of how to deal with the Chinese.  Now if you want to make the argument that this was merely Bush hiring good China hands then fine, I can live with that.  But whether it was Bush or someone in his administration, I think the one area that he has consistently shown a degree of acumen and competency is in his dealings with China.  He’s been firm but friendly.  He hasn’t been afraid to piss them off when necessary, but he also knows that this is the world’s next superpower and it’s better not to piss them off now.  We don’t need another Cold War, we can peacefully coexist with the Chinese if we understand them.

These dreadlocked hippie faggots staging their demonstrations?  They have NO FUCKING IDEA how to deal with the Chinese.  They are doing more harm than good.  For all his other innumerable faults, I think Bush has really done well in the China department during his tenure, and his successor will be in a much better place because of it.

Or maybe the sports fan in him just didnt want to miss the olympics...With GW you never really know. I am happy he is there though.  I think the positives are legion.