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policies. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he will not attend the games, making his excuse some prior appointment he made before the games, symbolizing a huge impact in how a visible world leader is taking China's politics (internal and external) as well as its "track record" seriously. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated that he will not attend the opening ceremony either, with the French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy hinting he may boycott the entire games or the opening ceremony at the very least.

Germany has also condemned China's bad human rights record but have not clearly expressed desire to boycott the opening ceremony. US President George W Bush said he will attend the games but has not stated if he will boycott the opening ceremony and many of the US Presidential candidates are calling for Bush to boycott the opening ceremony as a protest to China. Meanwhile, other nations around the world has taken a different approach. India, who wants better relations with China, has remained largely quiet on the issues about China and has even promised to make sure there are no protests in India aganist China even though India is a democratic nation. Both India and China are the largest growing economies, the fourth and fifth largest economies in the world respectively, and thus the strong desire to become better trade partners. Many nations in Africa have also made sure that they do not voice their opinions strongly, as they are seeking to get Chinese long-term investment in Africa - a opportunity India is also seeking to compete with China's markets.

Yet with all the pressure from the outside world, China is not budging. It just goes to show that with a government style like China's communist government, the real changes can only come from the inside - the party leadership. Much of the nation's internet, television and media outlets are controlled by the government and filtered so many people in China do not know about the protests and the world opinions about China. However, the Chinese people living outside of China and the leadership of China has such luxury to information and thus can be the motivators of Change. The strong protests and political statements are a clear signal and message to Chinese leadership that they must work harder to change their own image, and recently China has made some progress towards that. With regards to Taiwan, China is accepting the status quo even though China does not want to give Taiwan total independence or international recognition. China has also started to pour millions into the war torn Tibet, after 40 years of occupation and violent crackdowns, to try to build the nation back up. China as also started strong security operations aganist the large Muslim population in its western provinces.

In many ways, both China and the world are being changed by the 2008 Olympics. I think boycotting the Olympics opening ceremony is a good idea but the world leaders should not boycott the entire games. After all when the US boycotted Moscow games, what results did we gain? Moscow just boycotted us back during the LA Games. We should also encourage peaceful protests aganist China's policies and the Chinese leaders must get the message that we are not protesting because we are fearful or "concerned" with China's amazing growth, but rather that we are concerned about China's human rights track record - a reflection on China's global image. Through befriending China and working with the government of China, we can get lot more done than being oppressive to them or belittling them. Our message to China should be that the dream of "ONE WORLD, ONE DREAM" must be extended to Tibet, Taiwan, Darfur and to the people within China.

Learn more about this author, Ebey Soman.
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