Yet Another Olympics Update : China's Big Squeeze Play

Don't cry for China, people, they seem to be the source of their own ills of late. As I stated earlier it's already Friday in China (and while we sleep most likely the Opening Ceremony will already be underway if not when we wake up and go to work in the morning). Today? Countless Chinese will be home... though not exactly by choice. But then again it does have a double edged reason for it.

On one end the lockdown of Chinese in their homes ensures dissidents and protestors do not distract from the big Opening Ceremony with their protests.
On the other end the lockdown makes it easier to protect them from threats of islamic terrorist strikes against the Olympics keeping them safe.
So damned if you do, damned if you don't... or just plain damned both ways.

Across Olympics ground zero city Beijing, dissidents are their families are being held in what the article I got this from (wow, for once it's Reuters instead of Telegraph) calls house arrest. Others have fled to distant provinces or been taken on enforced "holidays" by state security minders... state security minders?!?

Well... China sucks.

According to the article, one Yu Jie (dissident-writer speaking for the article via telephone) said "I can go outside, but I have to ride in the police car with my guards wherever I go. It's absurd, because I have no interest in the Olympics, not even in watching them on television, and this is just giving me more subject-matter for critical essays."

So... this is the target of the wrath of an islamic terrorist group, neh? Sure, go poke the large antisocial over paranoia dragon country... see what happens next, oh retarded terrorists. I am pretty certain it won't be pretty.

According to the article "Human Rights in China, a New York-based group, issued a list of 24 protesters, critics of Communist Party control and their family members detained or closely guarded in recent days. "In order to ensure a 'Safe Olympics', the Chinese authorities have put society under a virtual lockdown," said Sharon Hom, executive director of the group, in an email."

So... what was the IOC' intent on giving China the Olympics again? To get the chuckles watching them do everything wrong throughout the whole Olympics? Was that it? Sure wasn't for any expectations of China changing their ways and becoming a better country that's for sure.

But still, with terrorist threatening violence it's not all about the dissidents... even if China's leaders need to get whacked a few times upside the head with the stupid stick to remind them of that (terrorists bad, dissidents good by comparison -- your cops and military would rather face passive peaceful protestors than kill crazed psycho terrorists, I assure you).

According to the article "Petitioners who have come to the capital to present complaints to officials have often been detained, many said. "We're always on the run now," said Wang Haizhen, a middle-aged woman from Hebei province next to Beijing."

In the end the Chinese are going to have to focus more on protecting against the terrorist threat. In the end they're the greater threat, and something they can't ignore. In the meantime I'd like to say we still have time and wait until you find out what is going to happen tomorrow... but we're right at the doorstep of the opening ceremonies. It's showtime, China. Stop screwing around and get your good neighbor face on already dammit!