Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleeezza Rice has said nothing should be done to "insult" China by boycotting the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics for its crackdown in Tibet.

"This is a moment of international recognition for the Chinese people, too. And I would hate to do anything that was, in effect, insulting to them the people. Not the regime, the people," Rice said.

"My view of this is that we all knew that when the Olympics was awarded to Beijing, there were any number of issues that needed to be dealt with because of the nature of the regime in Beijing," she told The Washington Times.

Her comments came two days after President George W Bush nudged his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to talk to the Dalai Lama on the Tibet issue. "I think that we should engage them on Tibet. We should engage them on Taiwan. We should engage them on all of these issues that are critical human rights. "But frankly, its a sporting event. And if you go there, I do think you have an obligation before, during, and after to continue to engage the regime about troublesome policies. But I dont see the benefit of boycotting," she added.

Observing that the boycott of the 1980 Olympics was not "very effective", she said: "I see it as keeping faith with athletes who have trained their entire lives for this opportunity and should not be denied it." Earlier in the day, German Foreign Minister Frank-walter Steinmeier said that neither he nor Chancellor Angela Merkel plan to attend the Beijing Olympics opening, but implied this was not linked to Tibet.

Source : PTI