Steven Spielberg pulling out of his previous role with China for the upcoming Olympics this year has sparked a massive rise in the debate over whether we should be acknowledging the 2008 Olympics at all. China have of course defended their seemingly abhorrent record on humanitarian issues by deflecting the issue of their involvement in funding a tyrannical government in the Sudan by stating that it really isn't their fault it's happening.

But really, China's record from our ethical perspective is certainly not great, and their funding of various nations with arms and giving them some level of financial security is not in line with what we in the West would say is the correct thing to do, but is this enough to pull a boycott on the event?

They say those inside glasshouses shouldn't throw stones, and while some countries in the world that may speak out against China can do so from outside of such hot climates, most of us are stuck in the structure with them. We don't support governments that oppress neighbouring countries peoples as long as you discount the Israeli-Palestine conflict. We don't arm countries doing such acts unless you discount Israel. We don't ever get involved in political conflicts of other countries unless you discount India-Pakistan. In fact when looking at it you have to wonder how exactly we can paint China as the ultimate bad guy when at least they only seek to depose the governments of nations right next to them rather than by travelling halfway across the world to do so.

I'm not going to get all anti-war on you, my feelings on Iraq and Afghanistan are very mixed. We of course supplied weapons at least to the former because it suited us and despite any conventional wisdom that may have been around as to what would happen next we did it anyway. Is this necessarily any different from what China is doing?

Well yes, of course there are differences. We do, it seems on the surface, tend to react to the ethical cries from around the world. As long as we're caught doing something unethical we of course stop doing it immediately, at least directly, and as long as the limelight is on a particular crisis such as Darfur we certainly talk the talk about providing plenty of aid to them, whether we really walk the walk or ensure that aid is used appropriately is another big question of course

Ultimately though China is a country taking its own political path. They are committing nothing that is worse than our parallel situation in Israel as a country, though of course the victims of China's funding are Black Africans while the victims of our funding are just terrorist Muslims (obviously a lesser race *rolls eyes*). For us to actually boycott them, without even going in to the irony of just how we can afford the luxuries in electronics and manafactured goods we buy without the questionable ethics of China's economy, would be to essentially put ourselves on a pedestal and state that our ethics are better than theirs, and that we are self proclaiming our being better than them in doing so.

Let's not be hypocrites, go to the games, enjoy the sport devoid of any politics, and then use the downtime to ask questions, find the truth, and debate the role of China in the wider world.