|
WASHINGTON: The White House race is reverberating with a grassroots
backlash over China’s crackdown in Tibet, and is in turn hiking
pressure on President George W. Bush to skip the start of the
Beijing Olympics.
Republican presidential pick John McCain
Thursday completed the trio of White House hopefuls to raise the
specter of a presidential boycott of the Games’ showpiece opening,
meant to celebrate China’s emergence as a world power.
Bush has so far resisted calls for him to follow
several other world leaders and declare outright that he will skip
the opening ceremony, but the statement by his Republican heir
apparent McCain further raised political temperatures.
“I believe President Bush should evaluate his
participation in the ceremonies surrounding the Olympics and, based
on Chinese actions, decide whether it is appropriate to attend,”
McCain said in a statement. “If Chinese policies and practices do
not change, I would not attend the opening ceremonies.”
McCain’s comments were the latest sign of how
presidential candidates, who face ordinary voters every day, are
more exposed to quick shifts in grassroots opinion than their
Washington-based brethren.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had led the
charge, following earlier campaign spats with China over trade and
faulty consumer goods, demanding Bush stay away from the ceremony.
“The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure
of the Chinese government to use its full leverage with Sudan to
stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for presidential
leadership,” Clinton said. “At this time, and in light of recent
events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the
opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese
government.”
Last week, Clinton’s rival Barack Obama said
he was in “two-minds” over whether the US should play a full
role in the Olympics, again citing Tibet and Darfur. By Wednesday,
his position had significantly hardened.
“If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop
the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security, and
human rights of the Tibetan people, then the President should
boycott the opening ceremonies,” he said in a statement.
Obama said in the statement, carried by a Time
magazine website, that a decision on boycotting the opening however
should be made closer to the Games.
Some commentators had suggested before the
Illinois senator’s statement that he might be reticent to call for
an all-out boycott, mindful of possible political fallout over his
home city Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games.
Bush publicly chafed on Wednesday at the
mounting calls for him to skip the ceremony, but was careful to keep
his options open.
“Nobody needs to tell old George Bush that he
needs to bring religious freedom to the doorstep of the Chinese,
because I’ve done that now for. I’m on my eighth year doing
it,” he told EWTN television, a Catholic network.
“I’ve talked about freedom of religion every
time I visited with them. I’ve talked about Darfur. I’ve talked
about Burma. I’ve talked about the Dalai Lama. I don’t need the
Olympics to express my position,” Bush added.
-- AFP
|
