Beijing is already showing itself to be a poor Olympic host. Any nation that sets up death camps for kittens doesn’t deserve to host the Olympics.

That’s right, death camps for kittens.

A chorus of meows is coming from Beijing, rising from inside thousands of dingy cages. According to an article in the UK Daily Mail, our furry feline friends are being rounded up en masse and sentenced to death by the Chinese government. They allegedly present an urban health challenge and are potential carriers of SARS. For the upcoming Olympics, the plan is to have a kitty-free city.

It’s frightening to see to what extent a nation will stamp on the defenseless in order to further its international grandeur. The kitties aren’t the only group disenfranchised by the games. The Chinese government has displaced at least a million people with its Olympics construction projects, according to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in Geneva. The vast majority of these have had no opportunity for protest.

In the 1930s, Mussolini leveled entire medieval neighborhoods and displaced their inhabitants to build a road past the Coliseum. He wanted to show it off to Hitler’s motorcade on his tour of Rome. Any time the world’s attention is focused on one place, government puts on a dog and pony show to make a good impression. Of course, it’s okay if some animals and people get their toes/paws stepped on. It’s all for the spirit of the games.

When we have the Olympics in Antarctica someday, you can bet that vast rookeries of penguins will be displaced, and whole harems of seals clubbed. Waddling and barking dissenters will be swiftly dealt with and shipped away if need be. The 1980 games in Moscow were notorious for stamping out opposition, and removing protestors who posed a threat to the reigning regime.

Some historians have argued that Beijing is going to be the same way. Protestors actually have to get a permit to protest in China, and they are rarely granted. Bureaucracy is a convenient tool in this case; protestors won’t be able to even show up at the games, unless they’re looking to get run over by a tank or set themselves aflame.

So why hasn’t the U.S. condemned China’s lack of building restraint?

Is it justified because our athletes will have more space for the two weeks they’re at the games? Is having an impressive Olympics more important than the lives of the thousands of kittens that are going to be euthanized, left for dead or eaten? China thinks so.

The Chinese government responded to allegations of population displacement by declaring that “only” 6,000 residents have been moved. Sure, we’ll believe that, just like we believe that Tibet was voluntarily invaded and that the Dalai Lama and Mao Zedong were drinking buddies.

It’s confusing when our own government sends us mixed messages. They condemn Iran’s fervent nuclear enrichment, and then look the other way when China squashes its own population or makes clandestine deals with the Sudanese government. We aren’t doing enough to stem the tide of poisonous products entering our borders from China’s overworked factories, either. I’m afraid I’m going to grow mouth tumors from gnarly toothpaste, or pass out from toxic fumes in the rest of the stuff I buy from China.

But the United States is still going to give China’s government a high-five and pretend like everything’s OK, as we compete in the Olympic games in a totalitarian nation. The least we could do is win. Win every event we possibly can, and let our athletes show China what’s up.

It won’t bring back the kitties, but it’ll show them that democracy rules. At least we can speak our minds when our government screws up. Neither kittens nor people can do that in China.

[Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]