There remains something odd about the decision of Hollywood's most celebrated film director Stephen Spielberg to withdraw from his contract to help the Chinese authorities organize the opening and closing ceremonies for this year's Beijing Summer Olympics.
Spielberg announced he was quitting because the Chinese government was not doing enough to pressure the Sudan government to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Yet when he took the job last year, Beijing's laissez faire policy in Africa was already perfectly clear. The Chinese were prepared to trade with any state that could provide the raw materials essential to their booming economy and were not prepared to allow the political record nor the dictatorial nature of any regime to influence this policy. This may be questionable, but it has also been consistent. What has really changed to cause Spielberg to quit his Olympic work? Did he perhaps take the job in the first place so that he could make this dramatic gesture? Just a day after Spielberg's bombshell, a letter was published in a London newspaper signed by 80 Nobel laureates, politicians and artists protesting the situation in the west of Sudan as part of a "Global Day of Action on Darfur". The timing of the film director's announcement, therefore, looks suspicious.
It may be, of course, Spielberg accepted the commission in good faith but later came under considerable pressure from other Hollywood luminaries, including the actress Mia Farrow. But it has to be asked what approach if any, the director had made privately to the Chinese authorities about his dilemma before he took this very public action to disavow their policy toward Sudan.
If this was a carefully organized stunt, it is reprehensible. If, however, Spielberg bowing to outside pressure, quit a contractual commitment, it brings into question his integrity. But there is a wider issue here. The Darfur tragedy is only likely to be the first of a series of issues that pressure groups who have a beef against the Chinese will raise in as embarrassing way as possible for Beijing. Is this really in the best interests of the Olympics as a four-yearly celebration of the very best in sporting achievement?
The 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics were plunged into chaos when many countries led by the United States boycotted the Games, because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan the previous December. Whatever the merits of that action, there is no comparison with this year's Olympics. The only invading China has done (since its 1959 annexation of Tibet - which is likely to be another source of protest this year) has been economic, since its burgeoning economy has been pouring cheaply produced goods into the rest of the world. The people most alarmed by Beijing's growing international financial and economic power are the Americans. Is it, therefore, too much of a coincidence that the first attempt to undermine the Games into which the Chinese are pouring such immense effort, comes from an American film director? There may be more to this than meets the eye.
