Xujun Eberlein. “Beijing Olympic Boycott Over Burma Will Only Alienate Chinese People”. New America Media. November 05, 2007 – “Beyond Burma, there are more reasonable arguments against the Beijing Olympics. The total expense, mainly on construction, is in the tens of billions of dollars. This is on top of the direct hosting expense, which is estimated to be $2.4 billion and will be covered by income from NBC, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and marketing revenue. Given the fact that a mere $40 can support an entire year of education for a poor, rural child, how many children could get basic education if this money were spent on them instead?
A Chinese official reportedly said that “The 2008 Olympics Games may advance China’s GDP by 3 to 4 percent.” What he did not say, or even understand, is that such increase is on top of the already overheated urban development, at the cost of the rural poor. The gap between China’s urban rich and rural poor is already huge, and rapidly expanding. The 2008 Olympics is only widening this dangerous gap.”
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