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Im-Politic: Can I Oppose Politics in Sports but Favor Boycotting the China Olympics?

02 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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arts, athletes, Beijing Olympics, boycotts, China, culture, foreign policy, human rights, Im-Politic, national anthem, Olympics, propaganda, protest, Sally Jenkins, society, sports

I’ve been struggling lately with two seemingly conflicting ideas that I support: Getting politics out of sports, and boycotting the upcoming winter Olympics in China. Maybe RealityChek readers can help me out.

I’ve laid out my arguments for making sports a politics-free arena in previous posts (see, e.g., here). I’ll amplify one in particular today:  Perhaps now more than ever, Americans need a domain in their cultural and social lives that’s reserved for purely mindless entertainment. Sports seems to be the best candidate, mainly because, unlike any of the arts, it has no substantial political tradition. And the main reason arguably is that music, literature, painting, etc can’t possibly avoid politics consistently if their works seek to make any statements about the human condition.

Of course, lots of art focuses on pleasing our senses and exploring new ways of doing so, and I don’t see how any reasonable person could object. And lots of art that seeks to comment on current issues is completely stupid and/or downright ignorant. But if you oppose the fundamental legitimacy of art that seeks to criticize or praise aspects of the human past, present, and future, or influence our ideas and mores, then you (logically, at least) need to oppose the appearance of much of what’s been the best and most important and most enlightening of human achievements for millennia. And you choke off the possibility of such works and their benefits being created going forward.

Sports, however, lack any such potential. They’re important for keeping us healthy. They can teach important lessons about leadership and cooperation among teammates, the value of hard work, and the like. In their organized forms, they of course should obey the law when it comes to providing equal opportunity. And who could seriously object if those who run professional leagues or sports on the college and university level want to precede society and the law in providing or expanding such equal opportunity to actual and prospective participants either on the playing field or in management, or in nudging society and the law along? And needless to say (I hope!), in their individual capacities, athletes and others in the world of organized sports have the right to express themselves on any issue or matte, political or not, and to engage in politics however actively they wish.

But I’ve also pointed out that today’s athletes or owners or commissioners are hardly lacking for channels and platforms for reaching enormous audiences with their views. As a result, there’s simply no need for them to inject their views into the actual playing or scheduling of athletic contests. Moreover, as I suggested at the start, keeping sporting events politics-free provides Americans with a chance to spend time together having plain old unadultered fun – which surely has major therapeutic effects.

Undoubtedly, some and even many Americans may object to any sphere of their national life being shielded from politics, and especially from the most pressing matters. That’s their right, too – and they can register their objections by staying away from the arenas and stadiums, and turning off their streaming services.

But what about common sports practices like playing the national anthem before contests, or asking politicians to engage in activities like throwing out the first ball or tossing the first coin? Aren’t those political acts? Not the way I see them. Instead, they’re expressions of national unity – which any successful nation or society needs to encourage at least from time to time. In other words, it shouldn’t be seen as too much to ask that spectators and athletes alike spend a few pre-game minutes respecting the flag – or even an elected President or Governor or Mayor of Member of Congress they can’t stand kicking off a contest.

And yet, as also mentioned above, I want the United States to totally boycott the China Olympics slated to start in Beijing on February 4. Partly I support a boycott (or postponing and moving the games) for moral reasons. I’m hardly a world class athlete myself, and so I can’t say that I have any real idea of how much training Olympians have gone through to win the honor of competing in such events. I can say, however, that their dedication to their craft seems especially admirable given how many participate in sports without mass followings, and therefore aren’t expecting to cash in big-time on competing at this level or even on winning. So I haven’t come to my position lightly.

At the same time, do many of these Olympians really relish the prospect of marching in an opening parade past a beaming Xi Jinping, under whose ever ambitious dictatorship China has persecuted and allegedly committed genocide against one of its minority groups, has turned Hong Kong from an outpost of freedom into little more than just another Communist satrap, and is subjecting the entire population of the People’s Republic to a surveillance programs threatening to snuff out what little is left of their private lives? I’d hope many Olympians would be positively ashamed to enhance this thug regime’s global standing.

Partly, I also support a boycott for U.S. foreign policy reasons. As I’ve argued repeatedly, Washington has too often responded to Chinese actions that endanger America’s national security or harm its economy or violate the human rights of the Chinese people with tariffs or sanction or export controls that are episodic and piecemeal in nature. And since the threat China poses is systemic in nature, they’ve by and large failed to protect American interests – much less improve conditions inside the People’s Republic.

It’s true that more sweeping, hard-hitting U.S. retaliation would entail major costs and risks – especially when it comes to countering China’s escalating aggression against Taiwan and elsewhere in its neighborhood. And an Olympic boycott could spur retaliation by Beijing against American businesses operating in China.

But staying away from the games could bring worthwhile gains for U.S. interests, too. Especially if joined by other countries, it would deliver a powerful worldwide propaganda blow to a highly image-conscious regime and its claims of global support and even leadership. As a result, it would also weaken a crucial pillar of its legitimacy with a Chinese public whose culture is also highly face-conscious. Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins has made a compelling argument that similar international condemnation helped bring down South Africa’s apartheid system decades ago.

China is unquestionably in a much stronger position. But national self-respect isn’t a trivial concern for America’s own security, either, and drawing a line at the Olympics seems particularly important at a time when Beijing is throwing its weight around in even the biggest American business circles more overtly and ostentatiously than ever. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But to return to the original question, a boycott would entail injecting politics into sports – which I’ve been opposing. Can I square the circle by claiming that China’s offenses are worse quantitatively and even qualitatively than any of those that have prompted the kind of on-the-field athletes’ protests that I’m against? Or that China is in a class by itself? Maybe. But what about the Arab and Muslim worlds, where an entire gender suffers systematic and often brutal persecution? So boycott any sporting events held there, too? I strongly suspect that treating human rights policy as the standard would make any truly or nearly universal Olympics impossible, especially if other countries began acting on whatever other foreign abuses they perceive. And maybe canning the games at this point is the way to go. But I’m personally not on board with that stance – yet.

The same problem appears to complicate the case that foreign policy considerations tip the balance in favor of a boycott. There’s certainly no shortage of conflicts between and among countries that could trigger any number of similar Olympics-ending boycotts. Which may just be too bad. Or maybe not. Indeed, if America urgently needs a politics-free zone periodically, doesn’t a tumultuous  world at large as well?

When it comes to a U.S. boycott of the Beijing Olympics, the answer may lie in our democratic system – and maybe it should. In other words, if, like me, the majority of Americans want a boycott badly enough, they’ll make their feelings known to their leaders, and there’s a good chance the politicians will follow suit. If the public doubts that a China Olympics these days is such a big and abhorrent deal, the athletes will go.

But yours truly will still be feeling pretty conflicted on the sports and politics question – and greatly appreciative for any advice on the way out of my conundrum. 

Following Up: Welcome Shrinkage of China’s Ties with U.S. News Organizations

31 Monday May 2021

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Following Up

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Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, China, China Daily, ChinaWatch, Following Up, Houston Chronicle, journalism, Mainstream Media, news media, propaganda, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Free Beacon, The Washington Post, transparency

Since Memorial Day is – or at least should be – a remembance and tribute to what’s best about America, it seems appropriate to report some good news: Some of the nation’s leading news organizations have cut some not-at-all-trivial ties with China.

These ties concern their decision to stop distributing with their print editions and posting on their websites a Chinese government propaganda vehicle called ChinaWatch. As I wrote more than two years ago, their decision to present ChinaWatch and the form of this presentation created two problems. First, although the Constitution’s First Amendment should authorize giving even possibly genocidal, increasingly hostile dictatorships the right to present their material in the United States, journalistic ethics and (I believe) the law should require the clear labeling of any such material as foreign government products.

I argued that neither the Chinese government nor the news organization’s carrying their material met these obligations.

Second, since ChinaWatch was paid advertising, it became a source of revenue for the news organizations that featured it, and because these news organizations covered the Chinese government, its appearance raised conflict of interest questions that at least should have – but weren’t – have been forthrightly acknowledged. Importantly, some news organizations have received millions of dollars from Beijing – not decisive sums in terms of the overall finances of some of them, but not trivial, either.

Happily, these problems have now been reduced, although not eliminated. The New York Times said about a year after my post that it had stopped accepting such material from all state-run media. According to this Tibetan dissident publication, the same goes for The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post says it has not run or distributed ChinaWatch specifically since 2019.

Official U.S. government lobbying records show, however, that multi-million dollar relationships still exist between several major U.S. news organizations and Beijing’s propaganda machine. As reported last week by the Washington Free Beacon, over the last six months,

“China Daily [the parent organization of ChinaWatch] paid more than $1.6 million for advertising in Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, and Foreign Policy magazine, according to disclosures filed with the Justice Department. The Beijing-controlled news agency paid another $1 million to American newspapers, including the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Houston Chronicle, to print copies of its own publications.”

And unlike the The New York Times, the Post, and the Journal, the Free Beacon observes,

“Many of the newspapers [still] working with China Daily face severe financial problems. The Los Angeles Times furloughed workers last year as advertising revenue cratered during the coronavirus pandemic. Papers like the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe have failed to turn a profit for years.”

The nation’s news organizations have more than enough credibility problems these days (see, e.g., here and here). Severing all official ties with Chinese and other foreign government media, or at least making every effort to publicize them to their readers, could only help them regain some of that trust.

Im-Politic: VP Debate Questions That Should be Asked

07 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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1619 Project, African Americans, Barack Obama, Biden, budget deficits, CCP Virus, censorship, China, Confederate monuments, Constitution, coronavirus, COVID 19, education, election 2020, Electoral College, filibuster, Founding Fathers, free speech, healthcare, history, history wars, Im-Politic, inequality, investment, Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, national security, Obamacare, police killings, propaganda, protests, racism, riots, semiconductors, slavery, spending, Supreme Court, systemic racism, Taiwan, tariffs, tax cuts, taxes, Trade, trade war, Trump, Vice Presidential debate, Wuhan virus

Since I don’t want to set a record for longest RealityChek post ever, I’ll do my best to limit this list of questions I’d like to see asked at tonight’s Vice Presidential debate to some subjects that I believe deserve the very highest priority, and/or that have been thoroughly neglected so far during this campaign.

>For Vice President Mike Pence: If for whatever reason, President Trump couldn’t keep the CCP Virus under control within his own White House, why should Americans have any faith that any of his policies will bring it under control in the nation as a whole?

>For Democratic candidate Senator Kamala Harris: What exactly should be the near-term goal of U.S. virus policy? Eliminate it almost completely (as was done with polio)? Stop its spread? Slow its spread? Reduce deaths? Reduce hospitalizations? And for goals short of complete elimination, define “slow” and “reduce” in terms of numerical targets.

>For Pence: Given that the administration’s tax cuts and spending levels were greatly ballooning the federal budget deficit even before the virus struck, isn’t it ridiculous for Congressional Republicans to insist that total spending in the stimulus package remain below certain levels?

For Harris: Last month, the bipartisan Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus unveiled a compromise stimulus framework. President Trump has spoken favorably about it, while stopping short of a full endorsement. Does Vice President Biden endorse it? If so, has he asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to sign on? If he doesn’t endorse it, why not?

For Pence: The nation is in the middle of a major pandemic. Whatever faults the administration sees in Obamacare, is this really the time to be asking the Supreme Court to rule it un-Constitutional, and throw the entire national health care system into mass confusion?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration offer free taxpayer-financed healthcare to illegal aliens? Wouldn’t this move strongly encourage unmanageable numbers of migrants to swamp U.S. borders?

For Pence: President Trump has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese exports headed to U.S. markets. But U.S. investors – including government workers’ pension funds – still keep sending equally large sums into Chinese government coffers. When is the Trump administration finally going to plug this enormous hole?

For Harris: Will a Biden administration lift or reduce any of the Trump China or metals tariffs. Will it do so unconditionally? If not, what will it be seeking in return?

For both: Taiwan now manufactures the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and seems sure to maintain the lead for the foreseeable future. Does the United States now need to promise to protect Taiwan militarily in order to keep this vital defense and economic knowhow out of China’s hands?

For Pence: Since the administration has complained so loudly about activist judges over-ruling elected legislators and making laws themselves, will Mr. Trump support checking this power by proposing term limits or mandatory retirement ages for Supreme Court Justices? If not, why not?

For Harris: Don’t voters deserve to know the Biden Supreme Court-packing position before Election Day? Ditto for his position on abolishing the filibuster in the Senate.

>For Pence: The Electoral College seems to violate the maxim that each votes should count equally. Does the Trump administration favor reform? If not, why not?

>For Harris: Many Democrats argue that the Electoral College gives lightly populated, conservative and Republican-leaning states outsized political power. But why, then, was Barack Obama able to win the White House not once but twice?

>For Pence: Charges that America’s police are killing unarmed African Americans at the drop of a hat are clearly wild exaggerations. But don’t you agree that police stop African-American pedestrians and drivers much more often than whites without probable cause – a problem that has victimized even South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott?

For Harris: Will Biden insist that mayors and governors in cities and states like Oregon and Washington, which have been victimized by chronic antifa violence, investigate, arrest and prosecute its members and leaders immediately? And if they don’t, will he either withhold federal law enforcement aid, or launch such investigations at the federal level?

For Pence: Why should any public places in America honor Confederate figures – who were traitors to the United States? Can’t we easily avoid the “erasing history” danger by putting these monuments in museums with appropriate background material?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration support even peacefully removing from public places statues and monuments to historic figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because their backgrounds included slave-holding?

For both: Shouldn’t voters know much more about the Durham Justice Department investigation of official surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2015 and 2016 before Election Day?

For both: Should the Big Tech companies be broken up on antitrust grounds?

For both: Should internet and social media platforms be permitted to censor any form of Constitutionally permitted speech?

For Pence: Doesn’t the current system of using property taxes to fund most primary and secondary public education guarantee that low-income school children will lack adequate resources?

For Harris: Aren’t such low-income students often held back educationally by non-economic factors like generations of broken families and counter-productive student behavior, as well as by inadequate school funding – as leading figures like Jesse Jackson (at least for one period) and former President Obama have claimed?

For Pence: What’s the difference between the kind of “patriotic education” the President says he supports and official propaganda?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration oppose local school districts using propagandistic material like The New York Times‘ U.S. history-focused 1619 Project for their curricula? Should federal aid to districts that keep using such materials be cut off or reduced?

Now it’s your turn, RealityChek readers! What questions would you add? And which of mine would you deep six?

Im-Politic: Home Delivery for Chinese Propaganda

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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"Democracy Dies in Darkness", BBC, China, China Daily, ChinaWatch, fake news, Im-Politic, journalism, Mainstream Media, propaganda, RT America, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

For all the attention that’s been focused lately on the mainstream media’s objectivity and credibility, there’s no doubt that some major newspapers have for years been foisting unmistakably fake news on their readers, and I just got a reminder when I went out to my front porch this morning to pick up my Washington Post. It comes in the form of the ChinaWatch supplement (see here, e.g.) that arrives stuck inside the print edition periodically.

My main problem with ChinaWatch – which also has deals with other leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal – isn’t that it’s issued by the Chinese government, and therefore is nothing more than Beijing propaganda. Any country valuing free expression should welcome all comers to its media markets and national debates.

Instead, my main problem with ChinaWatch is that there’s no way for anyone lacking considerable knowledge about China and its state-run media to know that ChinaWatch is a Chinese government product.

Near the top of the front page, readers can see that the ChinaWatch supplement is “prepared by China Daily, People’s Republic of China” and “did not involve the news or editorial departments of the Washington Post.” At the very bottom comes the statement, “ChinaWatch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp., on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China. Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.”

But why should that raise any red flags (no pun intended) with non-specialists? After all, the Post and most other news organizations routinely report that the Chinese economy is full of “private companies.” (See, e.g., here.) Why not simply assume that China Daily Distribution Corp. is simply one of them? It certainly sounds like a typical American-style business. And although the Justice Department reference might look a little odd, how many readers of American newspapers recognize it as a sign that the “company” is required under U.S. law to register as a foreign agent (though not necessarily as a foreign government)?

On page two you’ll find the masthead, with contact information for ChinaWatch‘s offices in China and various foreign locations. But no hint of any Chinese government affiliation appears here, either.

But there’s an easy fix for this problem: Require ChinaWatch to mention prominently on the front page (at least) that it’s a Chinese government publication. And because ChinaWatch is hardly the only foreign government product to appear in American news media outlets, the same should go for the United Kingdom’s BBC, Russia’s RT America, and others. As those two are among the foreign government media organizations that mainly broadcast, their identification could come in the form of text that continually appears in the “crawls” that so many televised news programs run at the bottom of the screen, or, in the case of radio, as periodic announcements (say, every five minutes).

And finally, in the interests of full disclosure, although ChinaWatch specifies that its content has nothing to do with the news and editorial departments of papers like the Washington Post, its appearance has lots to do with the business departments of those newspapers, and their bottom lines. For ChinaWatch is paid advertising. So the Post and the Journal and any others should make clear on a regular basis that they depend in part on the Chinese government for revenue.

After all, as the Post declares ominously in its new, Trump-era advertising slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness.” That’s also the place where reader ignorance and conflicts of interest flourish.

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