Beijing officials are doing their best to assure foreign journalists that the foreign press at the Beijing Olympics will be free to report whatever they choose. However, members of the press have concerns about whether it is actually even possible to report honestly from China. I think the world will get as accurate a picture of China, as possible, but I don’t know how much digging will actually go on during the Olympics. Will journalists plan to visit prisons and have access to political prisoners held there? Will they have the time or the inclination to really see what goes on in China factories? And do we care?
Many governments have said they would not boycott the Olympics, pretty much no matter what was proved to be true. Recently, the Australian government said that even if it were proved that China was harvesting organs from prisoners, they wouldn’t boycott the Olympics. Of course, the Vice-President of the European Parliament did threaten a boycott if China didn’t reign in the government in Myanmar (Burma), but I wonder if that would ever be carried out?
So, the question is what will the world do if the world’s press DOES find atrocities? Will the world even blink?
