WASHINGTON — It would be a “cop-out” for countries to skip the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics as a way of protesting China’s crackdown in Tibet, President Bush’s national security adviser said Sunday.
The kind of “quiet diplomacy” that the U.S. is practicing is a better way to send a message to China’s leaders rather than “frontal confrontation,” Stephen Hadley said.
President Bush has given no indication he will skip the event. “I don’t view the Olympics as a political event,” Bush said this past week. “I view it as a sporting event.” The White House has not yet said whether he will attend the opening ceremony on Aug. 8.
“We haven’t worked out the details of his schedule at this point in time, but from his vantage point, if you listen to what he said, he has no reason not to go,” Hadley said in broadcast interviews Sunday. “Because what he has said is we need to be using diplomacy.”
Calling a boycott issue “a bit of a red herring,” Hadley added: “I think, unfortunately, a lot of countries say, ‘Well, if we say that we are not going to the opening ceremonies, we’ve checked the box on Tibet.’ That’s a cop-out.
“If other countries are concerned about Tibet, they ought to do what we are doing through quiet diplomacy, send the message clearly to the Chinese that this is an opportunity with the whole world watching, to show that they take into account and are determined to treat their citizens with dignity and respect. They would put pressure on the Chinese authorities quietly to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama and use this as an opportunity to help resolve that situation,” he said.
Critics of China say that were Bush to avoid the opening ceremony, it would send a powerful signal of international anger over China’s violent response to demonstrating Buddhist monks in Tibet.
“The whole issue of opening ceremonies is a nonissue,” Hadley said. “I think it is a way of dodging what really needs to happen if you’re concerned about” Tibet.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not attend the opening ceremonies. Brown’s office says he will attend the closing ceremony. Merkel said the opening event never was on her schedule.
Bush is going the Olympics to show support for the American team and all the participating athletes, Hadley said. At the same time, he is relying on “his own personal diplomacy” in dealings directly with Chinese officials.
In a telephone call March 26, Bush pushed China’s president, Hu Jintao, about the violence in Tibet, a necessity for restraint and a need for China to consult with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leaders, the White House said.
“We have a lot of leverage on China. We are using it in a constructive, diplomatic way. And it is a lot greater leverage than just the issue of whether he goes to an opening ceremony or not,” Hadley said. “The whole international community has leverage. They ought to be using it now, not letting themselves off the hook by simply saying, ‘Well, we won’t go to the opening ceremonies.”’
Cuban official accuses U.S.: Cuba’s top sports official accused the U.S. government of masterminding protests to disrupt the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics, part of what he called a U.S. plan to promote an international boycott of the games.
American officials are behind “a ferocious” campaign against China, to convince the international community to boycott some or all of the games’ events, Jose Ramon Fernandez, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press late Saturday.
“The promoters of all this are the United States,” Fernandez said, noting that Cuba “fully supports China’s right to celebrate the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing without interference of any kind.”
Violent protests against five decades of Chinese rule in Tibet have been the largest and most sustained in almost 20 years. A government crackdown last month fueled large demonstrations by pro-Tibet activists and other groups critical of Beijing’s human rights record during the Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco.
Cuba, which has for decades dismissed complaints about its own human rights record, is one of five communist nations left in the world, including China.
Its Foreign Ministry defended China last month, condemning efforts to undermine the Olympics and alleging the Tibet riots were “promoted from outside the country.”
Zadick responds: Wrestling star Mike Zadick said disciplinary action against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was prompted by a procedural mistake in the documentation process of obtaining an exemption for the drug triamcinolone acetonide.
The anti-drug agency said Friday that the Great Falls, Mont., athlete tested positive for the drug at the recent Pan Am Championships.
“I have had an injury and was given the drug Kenalog from my physician to help the healing process,” Zadick said in a statement issued Saturday in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“The proper procedure is to fill out a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption). I was legally able to take the drug, but it had to be documented properly by filling out the TUE first. I have been educated about the proper requirements now and have learned from the situation.
“I support USADA 100 percent and I know their work is to keep all athletes on an even playing field. They want to make sure everyone is a pure, hardworking athlete. That is exactly how I pride myself.”
The 29-year-old Zadick is an assistant wrestling coach at Iowa, his alma mater. He is currently working out at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in anticipation of earning a berth in the Olympics.
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