My comment can also be found on his blog.
135.
Mr. Kristof invites readers to offer suggestions on how to alleviate the Darfur situation; yet it now increasingly resembles a well-crafted field research of free-flowing public opinion. Subjects under discussion cover a vast ground of international affairs, and controversies seem endless.
It is overwhelming to read all the comments before offering my own. To sum up, some posts are governed by clear logic and relatively accurate knowledge, of which some are even brilliant (such as #115 by Damien); while many posts are simply reflections of deep-seated biases and misunderstandings. Most Chinese readers are shocked, sickened or saddened by this notion of "Genocide Olympics", even though it's not the brainchild of Mr. Kristof. Opinions from those whose names and writing styles are more suggestive of an American background seem more diverse and well-reasoned. But be cautious before you conclude that Americans are more sophisticated than the Chinese. Many Chinese, even those who have the guts to voice their opinions on this website are not particularly well-versed in English. This is not a level playing ground -- Americans are at enormous advantage here, which you may never realize until someday you have the luxury of debating in a foreign language with some native speaker on a complicated issue like this. A fair-minded debater should restrain her sense of superiority boosted by the rhetoric advantage.
Back to the issue itself. Regrettably, although this highly sensational notion of "Genocide Olympics" has been advanced for more than a year now, I still find very few hard facts that establish the link between China and Genocide on solid grounds. To say that buying oil is supporting genocide is ridiculous, particularly when China's whole economic security is hinged on oil supply. Domestic economy is indisputably the top priority of any government on earth. China's stop buying Sudanese oil will be catastrophic at best and suicidal at worst [unsubstantiated claim that needs further research], while killings in Sudan would very probably just keep going, perhaps carried out with more primitive tools. Killings are caused by hatred, not some reasons you wishfully assign to be. Most arguments, including those presented by Mr. Kristof here, are stretched, hollow and hearsay-based.
American are sometimes so paranoid with China's growth figures that they fail to appreciate the myriads of internal priorities of China per se. They seldom realize that China could be led into crisis if things were even slightly mishandled. Premier Wen Jiabao's repeated statement that "we are overwhelmingly preoccupied by our domestic affairs" is not an excuse or pretense; it is the real situation. People in the developed world may never fully realized how stringent the constraints are for developing countries.
Many solid counter-arguments have been made and I shall not repeat here.
For those who play on this notion that "Mr. Kristof has a Chinese wife", a caution is that Sheryl WuDunn is a third generation Chinese American, not the stereotypical "Chinese wife" like Mr. Rupert Murdoch's. In terms of emotional bond and vested interest, Ms. WuDunn herself is perhaps many times more American than Chinese, forgive me for this bold guess.
I do not intend to challenge Mr. Kristof's knowledge about China since he has been to every province of China, whereas I have only been to less than one third of all Chinese provinces. Yet I do believe that Mr. Kristof's motion here is unwise. This notion is deeply offensive, ill-conceived and misleading, and will undoubtedly hurt the Chinese people's goodwill and alienating them.
Any provocative notion has to be backed by serious research and comprehensive scholarship, which is acutely insufficient in this whole heated debate.
— Posted by Lawrence Zhang
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