Olympics 2008

This week is the beginning of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Much of the economic activity going on in China over the past 7 years has been focused on preparing to host the 29th Olympic summer games. One morning I spent on the net investigating locations of past summer games. Surprisingly, almost all of them were held in large Western style cities. A few exceptions include the 1968 games in Mexico City, 1980 games in Moscow, and 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. I wonder what Mexico City was like in 1968? So I guess it was a bit of a change for the International Olympic Committee to pick Beijing for the 2008 games. An article I read on Yahoo!Sports that I can no longer find on the site mentioned that the International Olympic Committee should have taken China's human rights issues and media censorship more seriously before choosing Beijing for the 2008 games. I think this is only one of many issues like this that will come along with the development of the BRIC countries. As they industrialize and modernize, their nations will have the capital to host international events. China is also hosting the 2010 World Expo. At what phase of being "modern" does the West start mandating that human rights issues be worked out? In the case of China, I find it unlikely that the U.S. will make any major human rights mandates anytime soon, given how much of our debt they hold. International Relations courses speak about the "anarchic" international system, in which each nation has their own soverignty on the world stage. At what point does China not even care what the west thinks of their comittment to human rights? Perhaps if China were to say, "This is us and we don't care what you guys think..." wait! Thats what America does when the rest of the world doesn't like our policies.
Not that I think this topic is the most important one going, but this is something I think should be being discussed in the mainstream media. Due to jobs being cut in traditional newspaper settings and cable news dominated heavily by genera specific shows, it seems so much goes on nowadays that the media fails to really talk about. This topic is one. Seven years after Beijing was chosen to host the games, it seems human rights issues have gotten worse since then, not better. And what has the west done in response? Basically nothing.