Although there have been fears that the staging of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing could see a repetition of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which were used by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union respectively as a powerful propaganda instrument to consolidate their hold on power, this is not an inevitable consequence as the 2008 Olympics could be the seminal force for change for human rights and democracy in China in the next seven years.
The award of the 2008 Olympics to the world’s most populous nation with 1.3 billion people and a country that had never had an Olympics before would be a signal opportunity and challenge for the Chinese authorities to improve on their human rights polices and practices so as to make the Games a resounding success redounding to the credit not only to China but to Asia as well.
(14/7/2001)