China Hits Out at Attempts to Politicize Olympics

Cities compete fiercely for the opportunity to host the Olympics and display their culture and sporting venues under a global spotlight. As Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Olympics, protesters also plan ways to call attention to a range of problems, including genocide in Darfur, repression in China and independence for Taiwan. "No country in the world will compromise its core interests to host the Olympics," suggests the article in the People’s Daily. China’s official newspaper warns that such protests may disrupt the games, but will fail in discrediting the country. The official Olympics website notes that “The Games have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles.” Disagreement over the meaning of universal moral principles still rages some 3,000 years after the earliest games in Greece. – YaleGlobal