In Moscow in July 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) elected the city of Beijing to host the 2008 Olympic Games. This decision thus presents China as a political, social, economic and sports model to the rest of the world. However, the very same Chinese State-Party that liquidated its opponents in the 1989 Tiananmen bloodbath continues to disregard the most elementary democratic rights, to multiply its concentration camps (“re-training” and “work” camps) and to develop a form of geopolitics based on aggression. Will the Olympic charter make any difference? History has shown that the IOC does not abide by its ideals of “fraternity”, “peace” and “friendship”. After the Swastika Games (Berlin, 1939), the Gulag Games (Moscow, 1980), we now have Games supporting the despotism of a totalitarian state and sports slavery. Behind the ideological screen of the “greatest sports show in history”, a genuine project of globalization is emerging. After other cities (Mexico City in 1968 or Los Angeles in 1984), and before others (London in 2012, etc.), Beijing will be the specific embodiment of this project. Coubertin’s “silent machinery of the Olympic spirit” must cease to harm :

- Repression and destruction. The Chinese government attempts to weaken China’s voices of dissidence, of opposition, of non-submission, its critical intellectuals, the poor, the unproductive, and the country’s independent unions. In 2005 the death penalty was officially applied to 1770 individuals, and 3990 were sentenced to death. The Laogai Research Foundation numbers work camps at 4000. The organisation of these Games has meant the accelerated demolition of many working-class neighbourhoods (hutongs) and historical sites – an unrestrained urbanisation programme directed against the poorest inhabitants (expropriation of land, etc.). The international recognition of the Games, consecrated by the Olympic consensus, will put a stamp of acceptability on this violence.

- Conquest and colonization. China not only has plans to take over Taiwan, it is also pursuing a diplomatic and warlike offensive on Japan whilst terrorizing the autonomous Uigur region. The colonization of Tibet is taking a genocidal turn : acts of murder, torture and forced abortion are committed with total impunity. Thanks to the illusion of “peace and friendship between peoples” the Olympic Games have always served as a screen for strategies of war and extermination (Hitler and World War Two, the Soviets and Afghanistan).

- Doping, surveillance and punishment. With the race for medals, the race for biological weapons between China and the rest of the world has started. What is at stake is the hegemony over international markets. According to the logic of competitive sport, the Chinese style of breeding sportsmen and women is an extension of a system of population management that was already in use in GDR, in Romania, in USSR and in Cuba. Doping, surveillance and punishment are turned into a system of control. Pumped-up robots are thus programmed to win.

- Corruption and trafficking. Like any respectable organization, the IOC recruits its members amongst businessmen and women, political advisors, aristocrats, financiers and former champions-turned-lobbyists. The corruption of some of its members has been exposed by numerous scandals. Can a multinational company with an obscure mode of functioning (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Kodak, Panasonic, etc.) be expected to bring about a democratization of China? Far from the dreams of “celebration”, the meaning of the Olympic Games lies in a strategy of market and business growth. And regarding the 2008 Olympic Games, the IOC’s diplomatic manoeuvre is well and truly to support a regime of totalitarianism and slavery.

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