Two speakers will exchange opposing arguments before Q & A from the audience

In the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing, many critics have called for a boycott of some kind to show revulsion at China’s support for the Sudanese regime, its disregard for human rights, and its treatment of Tibet. Film director Steven Spielberg pulled out of his role as artistic adviser to Beijing 2008 over China’s ‘unspeakable crimes’ in Darfur. Actors George Clooney and Mia Farrow have joined the likes of former UK sports minister Kate Hoey MP and NGO ‘Reporters sans Frontiers’, in slating China for allegedly funding ‘Khartoum’s genocide’ and oppressing Tibetans. There is even a growing international campaign to brand these ‘The Genocide Olympics’, a slogan coined by Farrow in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece written with her 19-year-old son Ronan last year.

But what about the other side of the argument? An opinion piece in the People’s Daily in January angrily fought back against the politicisation of the Games, arguing that China will not be cowed by Hollywood stars: ‘If at each subsequent Olympics people stand up and use politics to maliciously attack the host nation, and use ideology to draw up boycotts, where does that leave the Olympic spirit?’. Other critics argue that the West has no right to lecture China on human rights anyway. So, should we keep politics out of sport? Are calls for a boycott based on political principle, or hypocritical moral posturing? Should the Olympics be used to ‘bash’ China or are they an opportunity to put the regime under international pressure to reform?