When Beijing staged the Summer Olympic Games in 2008, many argued — or at least hoped — that the international attention would improve human rights in China. It didn’t.
Now, China is counting down to another Olympics in Beijing, this time the Winter Games next February. And it is facing mounting calls for a boycott over its rights abuses, from stripping Hong Kong of its promised democratic freedoms to the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
The world, however, has changed since 2008. Virtually no one today believes that holding the Games will temper China’s behavior.