Ethics Newsline®

“Should World Leaders Skip the Olympics?”

May 27th, 2008 • Posted in: Research Report

“Global poll finds human rights in Tibet an issue”

From the Financial Times and Harris Interactive:

“A new Financial Times/Harris Poll finds that a majority of adults in Germany (55%) and France (54%) believe their leaders, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, should not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in China this summer. In addition, pluralities in Italy (48%), Japan (45%), the United States (43%), and Great Britain (43%) as well as 39 percent of adults in Spain also believe their country’s leader should skip this year’s Opening Olympic ceremonies.

“Additional results from the Financial Times/Harris Poll … include:

“More than three-quarters of adults in France (84%) and half the adults in Germany (51%) say they have heard a lot about the recent global protests surrounding the freeing of Tibet from Chinese rule;
“Pluralities in China itself (46%), Great Britain (44%) and the United States (41%) have also heard a lot about these protests;…
“Three-quarters of adults in Italy (75%) and Germany (74%), two-thirds of adults in Japan (69%), France (67%) and Spain (64%) and a majority of adults in the United States (59%) and Great Britain (53%) all believe Tibet should not be under Chinese rule.

“One of the issues surrounding all of these concerns is human rights as part of a foreign policy strategy:

“Very strong majorities in the five European countries, the United States and Japan (between 56% in Japan and 85% in Italy) believe that human rights should be a central figure of their country’s foreign policy;
“Interestingly, a plurality of Chinese adults (45%) believe human rights should be a central part of China’s foreign policy compared to 38 percent who say that it should not be a central feature of their foreign policy.”

For more information, see: Full press release from Harris, May 21 — Related Newsline Research Report, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7.