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From the IHT, “Sympathy from China, but not for the Tibetans“:

If the government takes harsh measures to crack down on protesters, of course I support that. This is an issue of national pride and national esteem. The Olympics are our best opportunity for the outside world to see how far we’ve come. (emphasis mine)

China needs to recognize that progress comes in more than economic terms. “None of the dozens who were interviewed acknowledged a contradiction between their desire for China’s acceptance as an equal among modern nations and the government’s suppression of dissent.” That’s exactly why the West treats China more as an opportunity than as a colleague: it’s not for lack of money, it’s for lack of civil society, for lack of human rights, for lack of the ability to speak one’s mind without being assaulted or arrested. The ability to see criticism of one’s country as complementary rather than contradictorary to national pride is absolutely fundamental—you love your country when you want to improve it, not when you ignore its faults.

The Olympic Games demonstrate the result of a culture of willful ignorance: a complete inability of China’s majority to see China as others see it, and moreover a desire to silence rather than understand what others are saying. They’re blind to what others clearly see: the blatant, revolting contradiction between the open spirit of the Olympic Games and the authoritarian policies of the Chinese government. Rather, they ascribe it to jealousy, the idea that the rest of the world is merely jealous of China’s success and, gee, we’ll show them with our single-minded nationalism and knee-jerk hatred of all dissenters.