United Liberty

Did Bush make a good decision when he decided to attend the Beijing Olympics? That’s what Nick Gillespie argues over at Reason Magazine:

To have Bush out there, saying what he’s saying where he’s saying it—and pursuing a larger policy of engagement via trade and other forms of exchange—is absolutely the best way to pull China into something approaching Western-style democracy, complete with robust individual rights and the sort of economy that will ultimately force governments to loosen up. Milton Friedman famously said that as people get richer, they demand the ability to live however they want—that economic freedom, which increases prosperity, helps create the conditions for political freedom. It seems clear that the Chinese government, like all governments, doesn’t want to yield power if it can avoid doing so. It’s also clear that the more a country trades with the world—for goods, services, and even cultural identities—the less its government can control its people. Here’s hoping that the Beijing Olympics, regardless of the predictable and bizarre repressions going on right now to ensure a “stain-free” event, push that process along.

China likely shouldn’t have been granted the 2008 Olympics and the legitimacy that comes with it in the first place. However, it’s hard to see what good outside of symbolism would actually come from the President boycotting the games in the name of human rights and pluralism, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi implied he should have done. With Russian relations on the rocks already, from a diplomatic standpoint it would have been rather risky to not merely anger but alienate a country the United States has significant ties with and debt to.