Why I Will Carry the Olympic Torch
American Chinese writer Helen Zia writes on the San Francisco Chronicle:
Up until I left China just before the uprisings in Tibet, the Chinese government was heavily promoting the Olympic spirit and teaching Olympic values of friendship, understanding and fair play in the schools. China is not a democracy, but its people – whether Han Chinese, Tibetans, Uighers or its other many minorities – are becoming more vocal because of its increasing openness to the world.
Unfortunately, the calls to boycott the Olympics and to label everything about China as evil can only serve to isolate China and the United States from each other. China is not a monolith, and blanket condemnations of China and its people are as simplistic as blaming all Americans for the U.S. human-rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Such rhetoric, however, is driving many Chinese bloggers into a nationalistic response.
