WI: Beijing Olympics Hit By Terrorists

OOC: Can't believe no one's postulated this.

What if Osama Bin Laden & Co/Kim Jong Il/whoever you want decides that hitting the opening/closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was, you know, a clever move? What would be the possible ramifications of such an act on the world stage? What would happen to the world leaders who are there, and the consequences on their countries?

What if they had a nuclear or biological weapon instead of conventional explosives?
 
Can this bew moved to FH?

Anyway, bad time to be an Uighur.

That's about it, really. Well, except if it was He of the Big Hair, in which case the South Koreans would be waving at PLA forces across the DMZ soon. But it's not like anything like this would be unexpected. World public opinion by now pretty much 'prices in' terror risk in its expectations of major events, which means that there would be shock, but more that it was *today* it happened, not that it happened at all.

China is not going to invade anyone (except North Korea, if they really think it was Kim). They'll clamp down on internal dissent - they'll have to be seen to be doing something, the people will be outraged - and there may be some arm-twisting of trade partners in Africa and the Mideast. The intelligence service could try to track down people associated with the attacks and Öcalan them, but given the CIA's track record, I doubt they'd be doing this much. The biggest effects will be inside China. The government will need a guilty party. They can't be seen to be weak on the separatists and terrorists, need to walk tall and talk tough, and responsible officials will lose their jobs or worse. Some posturing about Taiwan, the Spratlys and whatever that miserable place they dispute with Japan is called may be in order.

Of course, if this was a Tom Clancy novel, they'd declare war on Russia.
 
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