This is a huge question and I think it is something an awful lot of people are asking at the moment. I don't pretend to be an expert in any way but I do understand some issues from the perspective of the athletes who seem to become political pawns once every four years!

China and Tibet:

Throughout the history of the World nations have invaded other nations and imposed their values, rules and restrictions on a generally weaker indigenous population that was quite happy living within their own values, rules and restricitons... The Vikings invaded England. The Romans invaded everyone. The English thought they owned India. The Dutch imposed their religion on South Africa and the Spice Islands. Look at the American Indians and the Australian Aborigines. The French in Vietnam and the list goes on.

The World's newest Nation East Timor fought long and hard to get out from under the yoke of Indonesia and so Tibet continues to fight to throw off the invasion by China.

Dare I even mention America in Iraq - and not about the war but what values and rules do you think they are trying to instill on the natives of that country?

So China made the decision that Tibet was to be Chinese and had the political and military power to enforce that decision. A largely indiferrent World allowed this happen because there was no political 'return' in supporting Tibet but a great many political and trade 'returns' in allowing China to get away with it. Increased global communication and more outspoken activism has brought the plight of the people of Tibet into clearer focus over the past 10 years or so.

China and the Olympics:

The modern Olympics began their 4 yearly gathering in 1896 as an opportunity for amateur athletes to compete against the very best that could gather in friendship and fairness.

in 1936 Hitler turned the Olympic Games into a massive propoganda excercise to highlight the rightness of his 'arian master race'. Imagine how annoyed he was when a black American started winning races!!!

Every four years after that Nations started to feed off the successess of their athletes and National Pride emerged more and more strongly.

In all this time, the athletes themselves improved their fitness and training and while still amateurs they became more professional in their approach. Governments also started to recognise the value of investing in support for their athletes given the Worldwide acclaim for those who won gold medals.

However, holding the Olympics was becoming an increasing burden for host Nations and Montreal in 1976 took some 30 years to pay off the cost to them to host the Games.

The growing profile of the Olympic Games and the interest that the World took in the event saw an increase in the opportunities this created for grubby politics to become involved. In Munich terrorists shot and killed athletes to bring attention to their cause. Moscow was the biggest political football as Nations split internally over boycotts. Los Angeles saw Nations make political decisions not to attend.

And the Olympics continued to get bigger and more consuming... Los Angeles was the first City to actually make a profit from running the Games and this is a blueprint that host nations now all follow. Suddenly the National Pride is vested in the host City as much as in the athletes who compete!

During the building of the venues for the Sydney Olympics the building Unions secured the most amazing deals and bonuses because they knew the deadlines and shame of not meeting those deadlines for government. A whole swag of protestors also threatened the Games because they knew that Government would do anything to smooth things over.

National Pride is now on the line for every Nation that hosts the Games and every country waits with bated breath for the words spoken by the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the closing of each Games:

"...the best Games ever"

That Antonio Samaranch did not say 'best' at the closing of Athens was a huge statement about the problems they had in staging the event.

The other side of this coin is that the IOC can also extract enormous concessions from Nations that want to host the Games and it is this issue that has caused problems for Beijing in the lead up to the current Games.

The Chinese bid has been in the making since the late 1990's and as a part of the bid document, which is usually hundreds of pages long, they will have assured the IOC that they would improve their appalling human rights record, undertake the work necessary to improve the environment etc... etc...

Very few people who have dealings with China are very suprised that they would have said whatever the IOC wanted to hear to win them the right to host the Games and now, when it is too late to take the Games off them, we find that these were but empty promises.

The athletes, who spent four years training in general obscurity, have made the sacrifices and put in the effort with little or no real attention from their respective Governments and are now expected to toe the political line so that they can compete against the very best in their sport from around the World. For some sports the Gold medal will just be a fantastic memory of glory and for other sports the Gold medal will be the doorway to millions of dollars in endorsements and support.

In hardline countries the athletes who don't win will suffer loss of home and privileges in other countries they will just suffer the indignity of obscurity but there are only about 15,000 athletes every four years who get the title of 'Olympian' and that is a reward of its own. This has little or nothing to do with politics - just being good at something.

The Communist regime that governs China will not allow anyone to raise any voice of dissent against them - they never have, so why would they start now? They have the Olympics and by the end of August they know that the World will have moved on again but they will have the cachet of having hosted an Olympic Games.

Unfortunately, little will have changed. This is the same at every Olympics in every country that hosts them.

So enjoy the spectacle. Nothing is going to stop a billion people tuning in and nothing is going to come between an athlete's years of training and effort and the opportunity to win Gold.

Then when it is over, make your own mind up about what sacrifice you might make to help the oppressed, the poor and the disposessed.