On 30 June, French President Sarkozy stated that he would attend the Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games if the Chinese leader and Dalai Lama both think their dialogue was satisfactory. Following the media coverage of his linkage between his presence in Beijing and the Chinese internal politics for the second time since Tibetan rioting last March, Sina.com, a Chinese popular website and a number of other media sites conducted a popular survey on the Chinese people's attitude towards Sarkozy's presence at the Beijing Olympic sOpening Ceremony, nearly 90% answered that Sarkozy is not welcome in Beijing. Comments on Sarkozy immediately were full of personal attacks and bad language. The Chinese people only symbolically boycotted Carrefour in April following the fiaco of Olympic torch relay in Paris and Sarkozy veiled threat of boycott. However, people waited for Sarkozy to change his official stance before holding him personally responsible and attacking him. Such personal attacks are unprecedented in Chinese politics as normally the Chinese people are highly hospitable towards Westerner, even ordinary Western visitors, let alone a state leader.
Sarkozy has been put in a defensive position vis-a-vis China as France and the French leader have been perceived by the Chinese people as leading an effort to sabotage the Beijing Olympics Games. The French attempt to humiliate China on ground of human rights is even more unacceptable following a big commercial deal reached during Sarkozy's first state visit in Beijing at end of last year. He is seen by Chinese as a unscrupulous politician, one without any principle, one unreliable and untrustworthy. The diplomatic statements by other Western powers are irrelevant to Chinese perception of the French as the others' behaviors are within the Chinese imagination.
Immediately following the dialogue between Chinese central government representative and Dalai Lama's private representatives at beginning of this month, Dalai Lama side declared grave disatisfaction over the dialogue.
Secondly, in answering a media question relating to the invitation of foreign heads of state to attend the Opening Ceremony of Olympics, the spokeman of Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the foreign heads of state are invited by their national olympics committee to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. The answer practically hints that nobody in China has invited Sarkozy to attend the Opening Ceremony of Olympics anyway. The Chinese government simply gives courtesy to him if he decides to show himself up to support his own team. It means he is not invited by Chinese government and therefore China does not care about his presence.
It was a tactical counterattack against Sarkozy who has suffered a serious damage of his reputation among the Chinese people. Nowadays, very few Chinese bloggers believe he is a mature politician, certainly not a good diplomat, but instead simply a womanizer, a rogue bureaucrat, etc.
Sarkozy apparently repented and saw his own mistake blown into disproportion due to his political miscalculation. He took several steps to correct his mistake: he took advantage of G8 to announce his presence at Opening Ceremony of the Games without any condition in name of France, but also under the cap of President of EU; he actively proposed the G8 club should be expanded to include a formal Chinese membership, at hearing "no" from the Japanese leader, Sarkozy was angry and left Japan for home before his pre-announced schedule, which has been perceived by China as an earnest desire to repair damaged relationship; he vehemently defended his decision at EU parliament that boycott of the Games was not something a state leader should contemplate, that no country can boycott 1.3 billion people.
After all, Sarkozy is a humain liable to commit mistakes.
Another lesson of this affair is the question of dividing line between international human rights and national sovereignty.