Getting Ready For A Long, Hot Chinese Summer

I’m certainly not talking about the weather.

China continues to show it is not “ready for primetime” at the very time that American incompetence in nearly every aspect of policy, leadership and execution would seem to set the stage for a Chinese ascendance in the world’s eyes.

Anyone ready for the wave of protests that are likely to reignite in Burma right around the time of the Olympics? How about a round two in Tibet? In Turkic China? Why not even in Shanghai? The eyes of the world will be on China like never before, and the sight witnessed will probably not be pretty.

For most people with a (usually quite earned) grievance with the Chinese leadership, the time frame before and during the Olympics may be their last, best chance to get their story of victimization at Chinese hands (directly or indirectly) out to the rest of the world. Desperation will be the order of the day, and that means nothing is impossible.

Most amusing of all this is the fundamental greed of the Chinese (no less than Americans or Europeans, “New colonialists indeed!). The Chinese have not developed Tibet for the Tibetans, they developed it for the Chinese immigrants who they sent there to “change facts on the ground” and desperate Tibetans tired of unfulfilled Chinese promises struck back at their oppressors.

Further, the Chinese leaders are fundamentally unable to solve the contradictions of “get rich quick” and “take care of the people” and probably won’t be for many years to come. This has created a dangerous schism in Chinese society that could very well be on full display during the Olympic coverage.

Previous hopes I had held that the Chinese leadership would handle these challenges competently and perhaps even with a tad of imagination have evaporated amid the dead bodies of Tibetan protesters, continued genocide in Sudan (now spreading to South Sudan.. thank you Beijing!) and pathetic posturing by Chinese nationalists in power.

*Almost makes me wish for a McCain-Obama ticket, one leader who has the balls (and skills) to put the Chinese in their place after the disaster likely to unfold this summer and one leader appealing enough to most of the rest of the world to take advantage of Beijing’s ruthless incompetence.