Reaction to Olympic vote mixed in U.S.

Harry Wu spent 19 years in Chinese prison

By Thom Patterson
CNN

(CNN) -- Chinese dissidents in the United States and U.S. experts on Asia expressed mixed feelings Friday about the International Olympic Committee's decision to hold the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

Opinions about the city's bid to host the Games were influenced by issues such as China's human rights record. China executed at least 1,000 prisoners in 2000, according to Amnesty International, more than any other nation.

China also limits freedom of expression, prompting dissidents to become expatriates.

In its presentation to the IOC before Friday's vote in Moscow, Russia, Beijing argued that the Olympics should take place in China because the city lost its 1993 bid to host the 2000 Games to Sydney, Australia, by two votes.

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In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jian-Li Yang, 37, survivor of the 1989 Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, said he has mixed feelings about the decision.

"As are many Chinese, I am very ambivalent about this decision," Yang said. "On the one hand, of course, we want China to play some role on the global stage ... to enter the mainstream of civilization.

"But on the other hand, we all know that China has a very bad record on human rights, and we are afraid that the Chinese authorities are going to interpret this decision as their victory for the past policies. I think the Chinese government is going to do that."

Yang, who said he is on China's most notorious government blacklist, is a research fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

"I urge the Chinese people -- my compatriots -- to rethink what role China should play in the international order," Yang said. "China should take this opportunity to look inward at our problems. We should try to change our political system and many other things to catch up to the level of the rest of civilization in the outside world."

Witnesses have said hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed in 1989 when Chinese tanks rolled into the Beijing square and soldiers opened fire on pro-democracy protesters.

In addition, Li Shaomin, a Chinese U.S. citizen, and Gao Zhan, a Chinese scholar based in the United States, both face trials in Beijing on espionage charges.

John Tkacik, who studies Asian affairs for the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said he supports the IOC's decision, with reservations about China's human rights record.

"We ought to be very concerned about this, that Beijing's adherence to the rule of law should apply to the 2008 Olympics," Tkacik said. "I think that the Olympic committee ought to monitor Beijing very closely on the issue."

Tkacik said that the decision might help reduce political tensions between China and Taiwan, a disputed island that Beijing claims as a rogue province.

"I think for the next seven years Beijing will be on good behavior," Tkacik said. "There is a potential by the year 2008 for the same thing to happen to Beijing that happened to Moscow in the 1980s should the Chinese stir up regional security trouble in the western Pacific, and I primarily mean Taiwan."

Gao Zhan faces a Chinese trial on espionage charges

The United States and other nations boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Derek Mitchell of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Olympic committee should have put conditions on China's bid.

The committee, Mitchell said, should have said "that the IOC would expect that visitors would be treated and conditions in the country would be such that it would be in the Olympic spirit."

Also in Washington, Harry Wu, a Chinese dissident living in the United States, said he deeply regrets the committee's decision.

"That will prop up the corrupted regime," said Wu, who served 19 years in a Chinese prison for protesting Beijing's human rights policies. "We are rewarding and we are encouraging the government for what they did over the past 20 years."

Wu said he "knows for sure" that holding the Olympics in China will not improve human rights there and that conditions will only worsen over time.

Siva Yam heads the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce

In Chicago, Illinois, Siva Yam of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce disagreed. He said that denying China the Games would have worsened human rights conditions in the country.

"Just giving people economic freedom is not going to be enough," Silva said. "At some point in time the political development has to be paid attention to. But I believe a Chinese leader will do that."