Interviewee: Mitt Romney
Interviewer: Jayshree Bajoria
May 12, 2008
China wanted to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics as its coming-out party. But so far, the event has been used by activists to protest China’s poor record over issues ranging from human rights to the environment. Republican Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who also served as president and CEO of the organizing committee for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, says China should take some action that would “signal to the world that they, as a government, are willing to listen to the concerns of the world, and at the same time recognize the interests of their local population.”
Romney says companies sponsoring the Beijing Olympics are very concerned that what they hoped would be a positive experience for their brand could turn negative. But even as these corporations show their human rights concerns publicly—and privately encourage China to take action—“financially, they’re locked in,” Romney says. He says the corporations hope Beijing will take action “to do some of the symbolic things that would make the games a capstone for progress in China, rather than an example of what’s going wrong in China.” He hopes the Olympics encourage China “to take meaningful and important action towards relieving the stress on the Tibetans and eliminating or ending the outrageous genocide amongst the Sudanese.”
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