As the torch relay heralding the Beijing Summer Olympics turns into a duck-and-cover operation in several cities, the conflict between pro-China and anti-China sentiment has intensified the duality of the pros and cons of boycotting the Beijing Olympics.
On the side of boycotting the Games, the anti-China camp focuses on the Chinese government's notorious human rights record, including backing the military thugs in Burma, blocking Internet access, fettering journalists, buying two thirds of Sudan's oil, and brutally cracking down on ethnic-Tibetan unrest. They believe boycotting the Beijing Olympics is a righteous way to bring China further into the community of responsible nations.
On the other side of the coin, the pro-China camp points out that the boycott will have opposite effects than intended. They claim the boycott of the Games' opening ceremonies and radical individuals' effort to extinguish the Olympic torch are odd ideas, for these moves might feed China's nationalism, make the regime in Beijing more defensive, and fortify Chinese people's belief that the West is trying to humiliate China.
But in spite of all these efforts to call for China to take its responsibility for its status as a superpower and bring the 21st century to a better place, people will find out that the pro-China and anti-China protesters are not the real determinative of the future movement in this boycotting issue; the decisive actors are the multi-national corporations.
Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest PC maker, sees the Olympic torch uproar as a threat to its brand image. Investing more than $100 million in sponsoring the torch relay, Lenovo hope the Beijing Olympics can blast its name around the world and underscore the reliability of its computers, as it is now making an aggressive push into the U.S. market. However, the company now fears that the protests, intensified by the crackdown in Tibet, will tarnish the Olympic brand and Lenovo's association with it.
Lenovo's concern of the protests will certainly play a more powerful part than outsiders' demands in the government's decision making, because China's Communist Party leaders—mostly engineer—care more about the fate of the computer company that might influence China's economic growth than the human rights issues. We can imagine what enormous amount of fear will be aroused in China's Communist Party when the Western consumers boycott products made in China.
While some multi-national brand's disquietude over the protests might bring China to greater awareness of its crucial position in global politics, other companies might just strengthen the stubbornness and inertia of the Chinese government leaders. Coca-Cola, McDonald's and PepsiCo are still appealing to Chinese pride and patriotism even as the country is being pilloried overseas. Looking to expend their market shares in China, these international companies are cheerleading for China, asking customers to chant its Olympics refrain (including McDonald's "I'm loving China wins!"), and using nationalism as a strategy to build a closer connection with the Chinese people.
These major corporations fend off criticism from Tibetan and free-speech groups who want these companies to use their influence to improve China's human-rights record, and they're even apologizing for their support for the Dalai Lama or their use of Tibetan monks' image in commercials. Their attitude reminds us the fact that most surveillance software is manufactured not in China, Russia or India, but in North America. Shouldn't the world boycott America for manufacturing and exporting spyware to China?
As Joshua Meyrowitz warns in No Sense of Place, "The vacuum in our visible political realm of authority may be giving undue power to invisible men and women who run large national and multi-national corporations." These invisible business leaders who refuse to be viewed and examined by the public media can determine all forms of national and international communication technologies, university research, or even government foreign policies. One might argue that we, as consumers, can affect business leaders to push the Chinese government to negotiate with the Dalai Lama. But the fact is that not everyone is a consumer. Can you imagine what Chinese government's attitude toward Tibet will be if Tibetans are the largest consumer group in China?
Besides, when we have more option to choose whether to boycott Lenovo, McDonald's, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola for its association with China, we will, as Thomas De Zengotita points out in Mediated, only become more indifferent to our own decisions and to what is happening in the world. How many people think that their money spent in Starbucks will indirectly fund Israel arms fair when they enjoy a Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte? Or how many people will even bother to know about the conflict between Israel and Palestine?
The real decision makers are still behind the camera, and all we can see on the media are the celebrities' boycotts of the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese Internet users' boycotts of companies for purportedly supporting the Dalai Lama. The issues of Tibet and Darfur will slowly be driven away by all these self-conscious performers until we no longer notice what is really happening.
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