From The Economist print edition:
Were shooting oneself in the foot an Olympic event, China would surely be well placed for a gold. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay, taking the flame around the world before the games begin in August, was always a risk. Of course the flame would draw protesters like moths. But the suppression of riots and protests in Tibet has ensured the torch’s progress has graduated from minor diplomatic embarrassment to full-scale public-relations disaster.
Vaclav Havel and a group of international politicians and thinkers wrote a commentary on the Tibet issue for Project Syndicate:
The reaction of the Chinese authorities to the Tibetan protests evokes echoes of the totalitarian practices that many of us remember from the days before communism in Central and Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989: harsh censorship of the domestic media, blackouts of reporting by foreign media from China, refusal of visas to foreign journalists, and blaming the unrest on the “Dalai Lama’s conspiratorial clique” and other unspecified dark forces supposedly manipulated from abroad. Indeed, the language used by some Chinese government representatives and the official Chinese media is a reminder of the worst of times during the Stalinist and Maoist eras. But the most dangerous development of this unfortunate situation is the current attempt to seal off Tibet from the rest of the world.
Even as we write, it is clear that China’s rulers are trying to reassure the world that peace, quiet, and “harmony” have again prevailed in Tibet. We all know this kind of peace from what has happened in the past in Burma, Cuba, Belarus, and a few other countries – it is called the peace of the graveyard.
