SYDNEY, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President Bush, at a meeting in Australia with Chinese President Hu Jintao, accepted an invitation to attend next year’s Beijing Olympics.
Bush aides said the president’s plan to go to Beijing did not mean giving his seal of approval to China on human rights.
“President Bush also raised the issue politically of religious freedom and democracy in China,” Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffreys said. “He agreed that he would -- he accepted the invitation to go to the Olympics, and he stressed that for him that he was going to the Olympics for the sports and not for any political statement.”
The Beijing Summer Games are shaping up to be the most controversial Olympics in years. A number of human rights groups have called for boycotts, some over specific issues like China’s claims on Tibet.
Michael Green, a former Asia director at the National Security Council, said Bush‘s decision to go to Beijing cuts both ways for China. His expected presence “in subtle ways raises pressure on the Chinese to perform,” Green told The New York Times.
