Joshua Kurlantzick argues in the New Republic that the Chinese government is cracking down on dissent under the guise of Olympic security. Not only has the government blamed riots in Tibet on the separatist Dalai Lama clique, but it’s also recently targeted ethnically Muslim Chinese in the northwestern region of Xinjiang:

If the success the Chinese have had in playing up the terrorist “plot” against the Games is any indication, the Olympics may offer Beijing a chance to whitewash its Xinjiang repression for a broader, global public. Never mind that ETIM may not exist, or that most experts consider the threat of terrorism, even during the Olympics, in China to be low–the Chinese government knows that hyping the threat of violence at the Olympics provides them a once-in-a-generation opportunity to justify their repressive tendencies and antagonize old enemies anew. Don’t be surprised, then, to hear about the peaceful Dalai Lama–or, say, Falun Gong–“plotting” more nefarious deeds as the Opening Ceremonies get closer.

Also in the New Republic, French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy suggests boycotting the Olympics. He writes, “There is still time to … remind the Chinese of the possibility–merely the possibility–of a boycott, to say at once ‘yes’ to Olympic ideals and ‘no’ to the Games of Shame.”

It is not too late to use the threat of boycotting the Olympics as a weapon, as a way to demand that, at the very least, they stop the killing and begin following the provisions of the Autonomous Region’s constitution to the letter–especially where personal freedoms are concerned.

Beijing won’t give in? Boycotts in general don’t work? Well, I say to naysayers, we will never know if we don’t try. We have nothing to lose if we do try–and the Chinese and Tibetan people have so much to gain!

We shouldn’t be mixing sports and politics? We shouldn’t deprive the world of the great celebration that is the Olympics? Fine, I say to our sporting friends. But we must not reverse our roles, either. It is the Chinese who are ruining the celebration. They are the ones flouting the Olympian principles. They are the ones who will be hoisting the Olympic flame atop Mount Everest and, along the way, climbing over the bodies of assassinated men of peace and prayer.

And finally, it is because of the butchers of Tiananmen and Tibet that next August, the athletes competing for medals–athletes who have been transfused, juiced up, transformed into near-robots–will be running, wrestling and parading in stadiums stained with blood.

Robert Thurman, a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University and President of Tibet House US, contends in the Washington Post that now is an opportune time for the Chinese to work with the Dalai Lama, rather than villainize him.

The promise of the present moment has been precipitated first by the innovative leaders of China, gingerly stepping out into the glare of world publicity and opinion by hosting the Olympic Games and second, just now, by the brave people of Tibet stepping out on their own past the plans of their leader and, against great odds, standing up for the truth of their existence as Tibetans. …

The opportunity the Chinese leaders now have is nothing less than earth-shaking. For sixty years they have sought to dominate and control, in the futile effort to transform Tibet and its Tibetans into China and Chinese, a project the Dalai Lama has called cultural genocide. They have clearly failed. The “Dalai Lama clique” they blame and vow to destroy turns out to be all Tibetans. They now have the chance to look carefully at the facts, seek the truth, and accept that failure by trying something new. They have unnecessarily been trying to make an enemy of their best friend in all the world, the Dalai Lama, not only believed by Buddhists to be the incarnation of the god of compassion but beloved by people of all religions and humanisms as an inspiring thinker, teacher, and spiritual example – the Nobel Laureate, the living Gandhi, and the apostle of nonviolence, intelligent dialogue, and unbending hope. He has all along continued to offer them the open hand of friendship, aiming to find a solution that will be satisfying for China as well as for Tibet. It’s time, now, for President Hu Jintao to reach out and welcome his help.

Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu is also urging China to sit down with the Dalai Lama and hammer out Tibet’s future peacefully. From the Washington Post:

I urge China to enter into a substantive and meaningful dialogue with this man of peace, the Dalai Lama. China is uniquely positioned to impact and affect our world. Certainly the leaders of China know this or they would not have bid for the Olympics. Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials. …

And China, poised to receive the world during the forthcoming Olympic Games needs to make sure the eyes of the world will see that China has changed, that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs. Finally, China must stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to non violence, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate.”