While most of the abuse and manipulation of children in China occurs in the sweatshops that some in the west celebrate for their impact on poverty reduction, the Chinese communist regime’s abuse of Chinese gymnasts is shining an important light on the lack of respect for basic international rules by the Chinese government.

It turns out that China’s own press had reported that one of the gold medal winning gymnasts was under age. But the website has now been changed to eliminate any trace of that reporting. It is, of course, worth noting that this report comes to us via Yahoo! which itself has been complicit in providing confidential information about dissidents to the Chinese regime.

Put that together with the growing list of other abuses by the regime and a true picture of the ghastly disrespect of this state for the rule of law becomes clear: manhandling of a British television journalist covering a Students for Free Tibet protest, the suppression of several such pro-Tibetan autonomy protests, the use of a lip synching replacement for the singer of the key song at the opening ceremonies, fake ethnic children (!), the digital manipulation of fireworks at the opening ceremonies, the refusal to allow ordinary Chinese workers to attend the games for free when thousands of seats at many events remain empty…the list goes on and on.

No wonder some are calling these the Olympic Shame Games.

State-media story fuels questions on gymnast’s age – Olympics – Yahoo! Sports