ABSOLUTELY no one in the Western media is showing any sympathy for China in the current roiling mess over Tibet and the Olympic Games. But somebody has to, if only to try to achieve some balance and maturity of perspective. So I might as well make the effort here and now.

On Tibet: Westerners in general - and this includes the President of France - have no sense that the Chinese people regard this Himalayan territory as much of an integral part of China as Texas is of the United States. Go ahead and poll not only the Chinese on the vast mainland but the Chinese in Hong Kong and indeed even in Taiwan, and what you will get is an overwhelming consensus that Tibet is part of China.

You will get this consensus not just from the man on the street but from distinguished professionals, professors and even journalists.

The movie director Steven Spielberg can withdraw his participation as an Olympics adviser over Beijing's alleged diplomatic shortages regarding Darfur, precisely because he can do pretty much anything he wishes to in this town. But if the justly acclaimed director of the magnificent 1993 movie Schindler's List is confusing contemporary China with Nazi Germany, his skills of historical comparison scarcely measure up to his cinematic genius.

On the Olympic Games: China put in an aggressive and stylish bid years ago and nailed the right to host the Games against very formidable competitors. It won the bidding fair and square. It competed against the best. It has been investing literally billions in not only building some of the finest sporting venues ever seen, but in upgrading Beijing's infrastructure. It has earned the opportunity to show the world its best side.

And the athletes from around the world who have been training for years to compete in the Games deserve the chance to show their stuff without constant interruptions from protesters around the world. Gere, Spielberg and the protesters in Tibet (who may or may not have been egged on by outside influences) in my view have demonstrated disgraceful, disrespectful and ill-conceived timing.'

China's leaders are not stupid but they can be stubborn. They are well aware of many of their failures, on the mainland as well as in Tibet. Surely the most obvious is deficiencies in income distribution.

But at the same time, China is vastly proud - and rightly so - of its extraordinary accomplishments since the death of Mao Zedong. These include lifting more people more quickly out of poverty than any regime in the history of mankind has ever done. That record also includes a flowering of arts and sciences not seen since previous Chinese dynasties spanning the course of the country's 5,000 years.

None of this is to deny that China has handled the fallout from the Tibet protests and the spillover on its Olympics public image with all the tender care of a bulldozer running through a war-orphan settlement. This government generally practises the fine art of public relations as if there were no public to which it has to relate.

Dear comrades in Beijing: All the world is now a global village. Every step is watched and often digitally transmitted by innocent little digital recording devices. In this world there is no longer any place to hide.

You have been advised for years to conduct civil discussions about increased autonomy with the Dalai Lama. This old guy is far from your worst enemy. All he and his team have been asking for is more or less the same deal that you gave Hong Kong. And the Hong Kong deal - one-county, two-systems, in the formulation of your very own Deng Xiaoping - is working rather brilliantly, in fact.

What you had better do now is get off your high Communist Party horse and ask His Holiness the Dalai Lama to visit with a high Chinese official to discuss new autonomy for Tibet. For that discussion, I would nominate no less than the country's No.2, Wen Jiabao.

China's Premier almost consistently demonstrates, in public at least, a deft, diplomatic and nuanced touch. This is what has been missing from China's approach to this problem and what it most desperately needs.

Beijing is very un-fond of negotiating under a gun. But this is where the enemies of China and its own ineptitude have put it. It is not too late to save the Olympics and repair its international image.

But first, Premier Wen and President Hu Jintao have to get their own fiery mainland xenophobic hotheads under control if they want to get this crisis resolved. If they can, then the rest of the world needs to pipe down through the summer and let the Games begin, gracefully.

The writer is a veteran American journalist and author.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on April 14, 2008

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