Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

Good Hitch Bad Hitch

I must say I was greatly disappointed in Christopher Hitchens' recent Slate column condemning China's steadfast support for brutal governments worldwide, such as Burma's. In a few paragraphs, Hitchens methodically lists his objections to China's international behavior, and then pithily calls for a boycott or "cancellation" of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

First of all, Hitchens exaggerates various claims of Chinese intransigence. For example, saying that Beijing maintains "territorial claims over Taiwan" blithely ignores the fact that half of Taiwan's population favors eventual reunification with the mainland. In addition, his claim that Iran purchases China's missiles has not been accurate since 1989. The general thrust, of course, is true: China's hands are hardly clean on the global stage. I, like many others, react with disgust every time I switch on China's news channel and watch President Hu shake hands with yet another foreign despot, from Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe to the worst of all, North Korea's odious Kim Jong Il. China's selfish refusal to condemn the Sudanese government for its continued genocide in Darfur also counts as a black mark against the country. Only the most earnest Beijing apologists would deny that China's self-interest promotes human rights abuse in several foreign countries.

Then again, Hitchens fails to mention that China's behavior is hardly unique. For one thing, how would one characterize the continued American support for the repressive princes in Saudi Arabia? Or America's warm rapproachement with Libya's Colonel Moammar Ghaddafi, who still rules over a police state with an iron fist? Despite Bush-era rhetoric that American strategic interests are now aligned with our hopes and ideals, the United States government still supports several despotic, odious regimes.

I hesitated before writing the last paragraph, because I do not wish to imitate those who immediately challenge any criticism of China with a kneejerk reference to American misdeeds. But the point stands: any great power in need of natural resources must deal with political reality that several crucial states might have less than appetitizing regimes. Hitchens, for all his disgust with China, ought to at least consider this point in passing.

Secondly, Hitchens' support for an Olympic boycott hangs like a useless appendage at the end of his essay. Perhaps he was limited by bandwidth or an editor's pen, but he cites no evidence or even analysis explaining how boycotting or canceling the games would accomplish any foreign policy goal whatsoever. I've mentioned in this space that rather than putting pressure on the Chinese Communist Party in particular, a boycott or disruption of the games would be seen as a massive insult to more than one billion Chinese nationals, most of whom eagerly view the Games as China's grand introduction on the world stage. Were Hitchens to express his personal desire to miss the Olympics, that's his prerogative. But otherwise- why bother calling for a boycott if you're not prepared to explain why it would help?

Hitchens is very prolific and writes on a broad range of subjects, so perhaps he can be forgiven if some of his essays lack much precision, accuracy, or deepness of thought. But I'm certainly disappointed that his lunacy regarding Iraq has seemed to spread, cancer-like, to his perceptions of other countries around the globe.

A footnote: not long after composing a draft of this post, I stumbled upon a Vanity Fair essay penned by none other than Hitchens himself. A young soldier who enlisted in Iraq partly due to the writer's support for the war was killed earlier this year by a massive truck bomb. Hitchens actually contacted the fallen soldier's family and wrote movingly and eloquently about his experience here.

Sometimes I wonder how the same writer, in the space of two essays published at about the same time, can come off so differently. Truly, confirms Whitman's observation that we, as people, are large and contain multitudes.