Posted by: McQ on Monday, July 07, 2008 A little case study in why it is very often easy to criticize if one ignores the bigger picture and refuses to understand that in the world of diplomacy, everything is connected (and remembered). This doesn't mean I agree with the goal in this particular case, but this is instructive. President Bush said Sunday he does not feel the need to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics to state his opposition to China's human rights record. Skipping the event would be an "affront" to the Chinese people, he said.There a many who would say, "hey, it's about time we began doing exactly that to some of the countries out there who have human rights records like China's." However, in the world of diplomacy, that's not really as useful a stance as some might like it to be. Many of the people who are hollering about skipping the game's opening ceremony are probably the same people who want to see this happen: At the summit, presidents and prime ministers hope for a deal that would set targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming. But few analysts expect major headway or concessions from Bush. He insists on holding China and India, fast-growing economies and among the world's biggest polluters, to the same emission-reduction standards as older, developed economies.Anyone - although a deal is unlikely, which scenario sets the table for talks about emission reductions in China, no matter how improbable, and which scenario ensures no talks at all on the subject? You may not like it, but that's how diplomacy is conducted in the real world. Pretending these things can be done in isolation is simply naive as well as being self-defeating. We dis China at the Olympics, China tells us to pack sand in emissions reductions talks, or anything else we want to negotiate with that country. Like I say, I don't buy into the whole CO2 emissions theory of global warming, but this is a convenient example of the sometimes unfortunate concessions necessary if one wants to achieve other more important goals through diplomacy. |
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