China's Nazis

I wrote this article 12 years ago and things have got a lot worse since the Beijing Olympics:

The Olympic Games in China are the most disgraceful event of the year. We should not be supporting a corrupt and criminal regime just because it’s an economic superpower. 

Do not let anyone trot out the old nonsense about how this is all about sport and we should not try to mix that up with politics.

The fact is the Peking Olympics are about politics first, big business second with sport trailing a long way behind in the bronze medal position.

Every commentator, correspondent and corrupt apologist for China who defends participation in these games does so by arguing that they have nothing to do with the Communist regime which governs the country.

And in the very next breath they describe these games as China’s “coming out party” as one of the world’s great economic super-powers.

They can’t have it both ways. Either the Games are not about the host nation or they are a showcase which allows China to get down into the arena with the big nations and flex its drug-enhanced muscles alongside Japan, Germany, Russia and the United States.

To the Chinese Government, these Olympics are a virility symbol. China has conned its own people and the rest of the world into going along with its wicked charade of openness and decency. 

It must have been very much the same as this when the nations competed in Berlin in 1936 in front of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. 

There is very little difference between his dictatorship and that of Chinese President Hu Jintao who thinks we should avoid "politicising" the Games.

China is a police state. People are executed in their thousands every year, imprisoned without trial in their tens of thousands, denied freedom of speech in their millions. 

The apologists and quislings who want their freebie works outings to the Games – including the 437 BBC staff out there at our expense – argue it’s all OK because the standard of living is so much higher than it used to be. 

That’s true up to a point – though wages are low, pollution levels are at Victorian sweat-shop levels and rice has trebled in price. 

Of course, the International Olympic Committee is one of the world’s richest gravy trains. The Games tend to get sold to the highest bidder. Pockets get lined. Money is made. 

And money talks. We are so desperate for Chinese money we send out political leaders on grovelling expeditions to polluted outposts of Communism. They hold out their begging bowls, plead poverty and ask for investment in this country. 

We find ourselves celebrating the few crumbs from the rich man’s table when they knock out a few new MGs at the shadow of what was once the Longbridge car plant.

Meanwhile, this week 16 Chinese police officers were allegedly murdered by Muslim extremists, which conveniently helps to justify the arrest of 82 supposed terrorists last month and a further crackdown by the regime. 

It is quite possible the killings are genuine – though nobody should believe propaganda issued by the Chinese Government even if they see it with their own eyes. 

And nobody in their right mind would want to see Muslim fundamentalists make headway anywhere in the world. 

Yet we’re dealing with a country which locked up students after the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989 and threw away the key. Almost two decades later they’re still in prison – but such is the “openness” of this country that nobody even knows how many people have been deprived of their liberty after calling for more freedom and democracy in China. 

Amnesty International say that in the run-up to the Olympics, China has locked up, put under house arrest and forcibly removed people threatening the image of “stability” and “harmony” the regime the world to see. 

Chinese Communism is guilty of promoting civil war, starvation and atrocity in Sudan, suppressing Tibet and threatening Taiwan. 

I would like to see British Olympians come home crowned in glory. I shall probably watch some of the real track and field events and avoid the rest because they’re a joke whether they take place in Athens, Peking or London. 

I shall despise myself for giving even that comfort to the enemy. Because while China may not be threatening our lives or livelihood directly, it is a country we can’t trust and shouldn’t do business with. 

The Olympics are corrupt anyway. They’re all about who can take drugs and get away with it. Who can get the biggest sponsorship deals. Who can enjoy the most lucrative TV rights.

 

And I have no doubt someone in the Chinese Government is even now announcing: "The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die."

These are noble sentiments. They help to explain why we should keep politics out of sport and enjoy the competition for its own sake.

Or they would help to explain it. Except for one small problem. These are the words used at the 1936 Olympics by none other than Adolf Hitler himself.