China’s Olympics Are at the Center of a New Axis of Evil

S ome years ago, when the 21st century was still young, the president of the United States used a State of the Union address to familiarize the American people with an “axis of evil,” a group of countries aligned with one another, bent on terrorizing those of us who believed in freedom and democracy. The charter members of that “axis” were North Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. “I will not wait on events while dangers gather,” George W. Bush told the assembled Congress. “I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Twenty years later, the phrase “axis of evil” has become a laugh line, the president who uttered it derided by many, including the sole Republican who succeeded him in the White House. But there is indeed an axis of evil; it exists and flourishes to this day. Its aims are much the same as when Bush called it out, though its membership has evolved, as has the threat it poses. What is this axis, the term itself a nod to the enemy axis defeated by the victorious allies in 1945?

At its heart is the People’s Republic of China — you know, the government that sent the world Covid and lied about it. The government that took Hong Kong and extinguished its democracy. The government that threatens democratic Taiwan. The government that has revitalized the concentration camp for the 21st century, and is pursuing a genocide against its Muslim Uyghur population. That place where the world is celebrating the Winter Olympics.

The venue of the Olympics, proudly sponsored by Coca-Cola, Airbnb, General Electric, and myriad other American companies, is where Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping chose to embrace Russian leader Vladimir Putin, another member of the modern axis. You know, the Vladimir Putin who has imprisoned his country’s foremost democratic freedom fighters, and murdered others with nerve weapons on foreign soil. The one who invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The one who has interfered in elections from the United States to Europe and beyond. The one who has amassed 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, poised to invade and subdue democratic Ukraine.

The Islamic Republic of Iran remains in the dubious alliance. You know, the Iran that denounced as a great power grab the lame diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. The Iran that executed a prisoner a day in 2021, including political prisoners, women, and children. That is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. That continues to amass nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them in contravention of its global treaty obligations. That has been responsible for the deaths of numerous American troops over the past 20 years. That has abetted the murder of half a million Syrians since 2011. Those guys.

And North Korea, the world’s last remaining Stalinist regime. The one that killed more than a million of its own people in a famine. That used the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop a nuclear-weapons program, and now tests weapons with, and perhaps for, its pals from Iran. The government that took an American student and murdered him for no ostensible reason. That hunts down thought criminals and kills them, that attacks South Korean ships on the open seas.

The litany of the sins of these terrible regimes is well known. And there are others who deserve pride of place in the axis as well. We know what they do, we know how they do it, their trespasses on the morals and the customs of modern governance are well documented.

So how is it that, like some bizarre cartoon meeting of evil masterminds, they have all (except North Korea) gathered in Beijing under the Olympic torch to enjoy the glow and approbation of the International Olympic Committee, sponsorship from dozens of American and other companies, quiescence from the icons of international sport? Good question.

Perhaps it goes back to the question of why Bush’s axis-of-evil speech is now considered a joke. Certainly, there are those who believe that the Iraq War that Bush hinted at in 2002 was a terrible mistake. But more importantly, it is now commonplace on both the left and the right to insist that it is not America’s job to stand against evil in the world. Or worse still, that the evil that we see with our own eyes is of no consequence.

There’s no doubt that Americans are weary after two years of lockdowns and sickness, intent on their own problems. They’re also sick and tired of Europeans always looking to Washington to solve problems of their own making, on their own doorstep. They wonder how to stop Putin from invading Ukraine, how to stop China from crushing Taiwan, and they ask themselves whether any of it matters to them. Fair enough.

But as George W. Bush said, it is the job of the commander in chief to stand where others may not, to anticipate threats and to keep the American people safe. It is not clear that the world is a safe place, or that those who come for Ukraine, or Taiwan, or kill hundreds of thousands will not soon come for Americans. Why? Because they are emboldened by our passivity in the face of all these outrages. They are contemptuous of our pretenses at anger, our performative sanctions, and our weak “diplomatic boycotts.” They are satisfied that it is they who are driving a reordering of the world on their terms. As Xi Jinping might note, it is you who are playing the games on our fields. Indeed we are.