Will blogs rule the 2008 Beijing Olympics with benevolence or with an iron fist and hidden agendas?

Please excuse the use of the strike-through gag, but there is a strong argument that the drama and humanity of the looming Beijing Olympic Games will spread by the airwaves, print and maybe, just maybe, from Olympian bloggers as well.

The potential of blogging did scare some Olympic bodies in the past, but one of the International Olympic Committee's own initiatives for 2008 appears to embrace the use of blogs to promote the Olympic ideal of participation and inclusiveness.

Thousands of blogging families from around the world jumped on the chance to tour China during the "One Year To Go" countdown celebration in August this year by entering the "Olympic Families Tour Beijing" http://family.beijing2008.cn/en competition. On July 4, 10 families, five of which are Chinese, were chosen from over 12,000 families and 62 countries as the competition's winners. Of these winners, the Chinese clans are now being shuffled around the nation as part of their Olympic promotional duties for the 2008 Games. This blogger is sure that the BOCOG will get their monies worth out of these "lucky" winners.

Beyond the BOCOG's blogging competition, writing a solely Olympic-themed blog doesn't appear to have caught on. However, blogging hawks who eye China closely have collectively published reams of posts that illustrate how important the Beijing Olympic Games will be for China, and how the world sees China as a nation.

Several observers already commented that the Beijing Olympic Games is being used as the metaphorical carrot that supposedly drives every reform and change to improve China's ills. Indeed, there is a noticeable split between a Chinese perspective of nation-building and outsiders highlighting ills that are rarely discussed openly inside of China. Most posts in this latter category focus on thorny political, human rights and environmental issues that China faces both globally and around the Olympic venues. One of these issues involves the terrible conflict in Sudan's Dafur region, with several people accusing China of indirectly maintaining part of the horrific situation there. The Passion of The Present Blog has an excellent example of how deeply some believe that the Olympic Games can be used as leverage on China.

If ... nothing has changed [in Darfur], I can imagine that you would see the activist community saying, 'Okay; enough is enough; the time has come to really put the pressure on the Chinese government,' and then maybe stepping up the calls for the boycott ... with athletes or with sponsors, such as Coca Cola, for example, who is going to be investing heavily in the Games.

Several other bloggers have commented on the potential leverage that the Olympic Games can place on Beijing. Every China blogger's favorite PR spinmeister, Imagethief, recently wrote an incredible piece on how the Olympics can be used as a vehicle for causes around the world, and that China appears to be facing a huge task in halting agenda seekers looking to exploit their event.

The Olympics is more than a sporting competition. It's a global platform that makes a seductive lever for anyone with an agenda that they want to propel into the public consciousness. The modern Olympics has always been seen as an opportunity to make political statements. With just one year to go, most China bloggers are unfortunately preoccupied with eating supposedly-recycled baozi rather than turning their keyboard-sharpened senses towards something as meaty and inviting as Beijing's 2008 Olympics.