“The Olympics will only intensify the ‘pressures for change,'” they said. Matthew Continetti at The Weekly Standard (“Gold Medal in Tyranny“) recounts this and all the other rationalizations as to why it was good that China would host the Olympics. And he points out how the results have been just the opposite of what was predicted.
I think it could have worked out the way the apologists wanted. The trouble is, there too many people are so eager to make money dealing with China that they are willing to overlook or even cooperate in repression. It’s to the point that the pressure is not so much on China, as that the the pressure is on western companies who want to get in on the China business. Under those conditions, our freedoms will become more like those of China than vice versa.