Louise Blouin MacBain: (Mis)judgement: Spielberg And The Beijing Olympics

On Feb. 12, film director Steven Spielberg publicly announced his withdrawal as artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games on the grounds of a clash of "conscience." This clash, Spielberg said, was due to China's unwillingness to intervene in the conflict in Darfur, which has since 2003 claimed 200,000 lives. He noted: "Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there." This responsibility for China that Spielberg identified was due to China's significant investment in the region in the petroleum industry and for its support of Khartoum. Since then China has both objected to Spielberg's announcement and, in fact, has made several conciliatory gestures to his demands. On Feb. 25, China went against its tradition of non-interventionist diplomacy and called upon Khartoum to allow a joint U.N., ... (link)