I have been trying to avoid writing about the various protests and controversies going on over the Beijing Olympics. I still read all of the articles and feel empathy to all sides. However, I do feel a little disappointed that just now people’s grievances of China hosting the Olympic Games are just starting to come out now. Let’s not forget China put in a pretty strong bid for the 2000 Olympics and was just beaten by Sydney.

Have people forgotten where all of their clothing and gadgets are being made? I haven’t heard any people calling for bans on Ipods because they are made in China. China’s cheap labor supplies western countries with cheap consumer goods.

I thought Marcel Berlins in the Guardian made some very timely comments:

Britain, like every other western industrial nation, is anxious - no, is desperate - to do business with the world’s fastest-growing economic power. Not a moment goes by without British government ministers, trade missions, industrialists, salesmen and business executives, buyers and sellers, importers and exporters, energetically attempting to do deals with the Chinese, competing with similar interests in dozens of other countries. I do not notice many complaints about Tibet or Darfur emerging from those sources. I have failed to spot threats by the British to boycott this or that trade fair or business conference to demonstrate their disapproval of Chinese behaviour. Yet it seems acceptable for sporting events and sportsmen and women to take the rap, and their careers be sacrificed, over something that has absolutely nothing to do with them. That is where the gross hypocrisy and dishonesty lies.

I don’t think we can ignore the problems going on in China. The Olympics can be used to bring about positive change, but we shouldn’t let the protests overshadow what is shaping up to be one the greatest sports events of all time.