You are right in part about the Chinese government’s motives, but there’s more to it than that. The possibility of a boycott of any description is clearly always on the table, for every event, but I don’t think that the Chinese come close to meriting it. That’s doubly true for a boycott by national teams, of course, but also for the opening ceremony, which is more about the Olympics themselves than it is about the country in which they are hosted.

If we wish for China to become something impressive, then surely the correct way to do so is to reward steps in the right direction and withhold rewards when those steps are absent. I decline to patronize China as if the nation were an ill-behaved child whose outbursts would somehow be cured through an infusion of “self esteem”.

This Olympics is an attempt by the Chinese government to validate its existing policies in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of its own populace. It is a referendum on the repressive status quo. I vote no, as you’re aware; but the MINIMUM we all ought to agree on is that the possibility of a boycott be on the table so that the nation perceieves a risk to the sort of pre-Olympic “cleanups” we’ve seen lately.

Personally, I think that boycotting the opening ceremony is a mistake, because appearing at it isn’t an explicit approval of the Chinese regime. It just looks like they’re too gutless to call a full-scale boycott of what really counts, their atheletes, although that’s better done by national federations rather than governments in any case (and it’s best when it’s for sporting reasons, as the South African boycott was). I don’t have a problem if they don’t wish to appear, particularly if it’s to spend time doing something more worthwhile instead, but announcing as a protest looks relatively silly to me.

I also don’t get particularly excited about China in any case, which looks to me to be set on a better modernisation trajectory than Russia, which went too far, too fast and with virtually no organisation, nearly collapsed and then rebounded to something potentially quite unpleasant. People need to have some patience.

We certainly have committed far more horrible acts during the last 6 years than China.

While expressing scepticism about a complete boycott, he did not rule one out. “This is not the right moment to talk about a boycott … We should watch how the Chinese government deals with the situation in the next weeks and months.”

Nicely done. Only thing I’d prefer is “this situation and others”.

Dangle that carrot!