China an Olympic Hangover? in Global Forecast: the Top Security Challenges of 2008

American airwaves are typically quiet the last month of summer before Labor Day. Not so in 2008, when U.S. households will be treated to several extended media events. The first, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, kicks off on August 8 and continues through August 24. Though far less covered and watched than the Olympics, the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions follow shortly thereafter, August 25–28 and September 1–4, respectively.

Though the Olympic Games and the conventions are obviously dissimilar in many respects, it is worth considering their combined effect on the attitudes of Americans toward China at the height of the U.S. political season. These events are, after all, convened and carefully orchestrated by their organizers for political reasons—overt in the case of the conventions, but hardly ambiguous in the case of the Beijing Olympics.

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