Saturday, April 19, 2008
Do you agree with a boycott of the Beijing Olympics? Discuss.

Topic: Politics, (in) Sports
Issue: Whether there should be a Boycott of the Beijing Olympics
Context: Beijing Olympics, 2008
The Present
Global Issue
Key words:
“Do you agree”: Yes/No question
“Boycott”: In what ways?
- Not sending athletes to compete
- Officials, referees or umpires not present
- Not participating in one way or another when you are supposed to
“Discuss”: Show a balanced argument
Stand: There shouldn’t be a boycott.

Topic Sentences
1) There shouldn’t be a boycott because it is against the Olympics spirit.
2) There shouldn’t be a boycott because it will strain the relationships between China and the countries involved.
3) There shouldn’t be a boycott because it will disrupt the Olympics.
4) Countries should boycott the Olympics as it has caused many problems already.

Topic Sentence 2
Point: There shouldn’t be a boycott because it will strain the relationships between China and the countries involved.

Elaboration: Bilateral relations and relations between any countries are important to a country. These relationships may have a very important part to play in a countries’ economy. Trade and cooperation between the countries will keep the global economy running.

Evidence: China is the fourth largest country in the world with regards to their exchange rate. China is actively involved with trade with many countries around the world. Their value of global trade is about $1.758 trillion as of 2007. From this statistics, we can tell that China is very much actively involved in trade, especially with countries like USA and Japan.

Evaluation: Since the political relationship with China is beneficial to their economy, countries should maintain close ties with China and not strain it just because of boycotting the Olympics. Not only this, if relationships strain, it may lead to further conflict which may cause chaos in the global context.

Link: Therefore, there shouldn’t be a boycott of the Olympics so as to maintain political ties with China.

-Tan Wenjie