Let the Games Go On 

A letter to the editorial page of a D.C. newspaper 
by Joan Chen (Wednesday, April 9, 2008) 

I was born in Shanghai in 1961 and grew up during the Cultural 
Revolution. During my childhood, I saw my family lose our house. My 
grandfather, who studied medicine in England, committed suicide after
he was wrongly accused of being a counterrevolutionary and a foreign 
spy. Those were the worst of times. Since the Cultural Revolution ended
in the late 1970s, however, I have witnessed unimaginable progress in 
China. Changes that few ever thought possible have occurred in a single
generation. 

A communist government that had no ties to the West has evolved into a 
more open government eager to join the international community. A 
state-controlled economy has morphed into a market economy, greatly 
raising people's standard of living. It's clear that the majority of
the Chinese people enjoy much fuller, more abundant lives today than 30
years ago.

Though much remains to be done, the Chinese government has made rapid 
progress in opening up and trying to be part of the international 
community.

Last month I went to China and spent four weeks visiting Shanghai, 
Beijing, Hong Kong and Chengdu. The people I met and spoke with are 
proud and excited about the Beijing Games. They believe that the 
Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to showcase modern China to the
rest of the world. Like many Americans, most Chinese people are 
disturbed by the recent events in Tibet.  But after watching the scenes
of violence and arson by the rioters, the Chinese believe that the 
government is doing the right thing in cracking down to restore order. 

The Olympic torch is in California and is to be carried through San 
Francisco today. In a resolution criticizing China, Chris Daly, a 
member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that 
demonstrating against the torch relay would "provide the people of San
Francisco with a lifetime opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese 
people gain more freedom and rights." 

To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign Daly's resolution. This 
statement could not be further from reality.  For one thing, the 
Chinese are a proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but 
they know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one 
can grant them freedom and rights from afar. The stigma of Western 
imperialism and the Opium Wars also remains a strong reminder of the 
past, and Chinese people do not want their domestic policies to be 
dictated by outside powers. 

They also do not want the United States to boycott the opening 
ceremonies of the Games. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow 
and the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished
nothing. A U.S. boycott of the opening ceremonies in Beijing would be 
counterproductive for relations between the two countries. For decades,
anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent millions of 
dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is 
the only voice that's acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media and to
the U.S. government. 

But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and farsighted. We 
need to make more friends than enemies. Remember what a little 
ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let's 
celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge 
for friendship, not a playground for politics. 

Note: the following was included with the piece in the newspaper -- "The writer is an actress and  
 director. She became a U.S. citizen in 1989."  Additonally, we think her reference to 
 "western  imperialism" above refers to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.