Concentrate on holding great Olympics
My advice to Lau Nai-keung ('Don't meddle with Chinese sovereignty', March 31) is to calm down. China will host an impressive Olympics. There will be various protests and the world will move on.
Mr Lau is from a political system where there is only one view - the official one. Opinions are much more discordant in the west. The independent media does not represent the views of foreigners at large. Nor do the protesters (representing all manner of causes) who will certainly be present at the Games.
I suspect a great majority of westerners have no particular view on China's '1,000-year' history with Tibet, other than wishing for the obvious - a peaceful accommodation between the different peoples.
Indeed, most of us have our own collective histories of colonisation, which have often been grievously unjust. We have learned that true national integration can come only from reconciliation based on equality and trust, and we still have a long way to go. Are the Chinese and Tibetans ready for this path?
As a large, successful and influential country, China, inevitably, will attract its share of critics. It is surely resilient enough to withstand complaints about its conduct without descending into the blood-curdling scenarios Mr Lau fears. Imagine if an American city were hosting the Olympics this year - the international civil disobedience and street demonstrations, most of them decrying the US, would have already started.
We can't be surprised that the Olympics has become such a charged event; after all, it is Beijing itself which has placed so much national political significance on its success. It is naive to think that it is only, or even mainly, 'about sport'.
