America’s athletes — and those of competing countries — put on a magnificent, even inspiring, performance in Communist China, reminding the world of why the Olympic idea has endured, as it has, through the centuries. Even editors as crusty as those who conduct these columns are moved by the cross-cultural camaraderie and spectacle of athletes from 200 nations gathering in one place to cast aside politics and war and compete on the field merit. But in respect of the net impact of the Games on the campaign for democracy in the communist country, a devastating assessment was issued ahead of the closing ceremonies by Human Rights Watch.

We’ve had our innings with Human Rights Watch, particularly in respect of Israel. But the rights organization said in a press release that in the past year it has been monitoring and documenting what it called “extensive human rights violations directly linked to the preparation and hosting of the Games.” Its Asia advocacy director, Sophie Richardson, was quoted in the organization’s latest press release as saying: “The 2008 Beijing Games have put an end — once and for all — to the notion that these Olympics are a ‘force for good.'”

That assessment is a rebuke to the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, who, in August 2007, according to HRW, told Reuters: “We believe the Games are going to move ahead the agenda of the social and human rights as far as possible, the Games are going to be a force for good.” But, according to Human Rights Watch, the Chinese communist regime “consistently violated its Olympics-related human rights commitments.” HRW scored the IOC itself for having “failed in its duty to ensure that the government fulfilled those pledges.”

One of the things to remember is that the commitments China made in respect of the Games were supposed to be just that, though the host city contract is secret. China’s public commitments and obligations from the Olympic Charter included “complete freedom to report,” broadcast freedom, and a complete lifting of Internet restrictions. Beijing announced with fanfare the permitting of protests in three protest zones. It made a mockery of all three basic commitments. In the case of the protest zones, they were cynically used to entice would-be protestors to make themselves and supporters known. Then they were disappeared. In a new low, this week the Chinese government even forced two elderly Chinese women (77 and 79 years old) out of their homes and sentenced them to a year of reform through labor for trying to peacefully protest as China had promised they could.

In sum, the worst of China’s authoritarian impulses have been on display along with the country’s massive gold medal haul. The blitheness which with the Chinese communists defaulted on their public commitments and contractual obligations is something to be remembered not only by the disgraced International Olympic Committee but also by our government and by our corporate and financial leaders who do business on the communist mainland. It’s a lesson that many of us who covered the Cold War took to heart long ago. The idea of a contractual agreement with a Communist country is a contradiction, for contracts at the end of the day can be effectively struck only under a system of laws, and laws draw their validity from powers delegated by the people.

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For those of us who covered the struggle for freedom in Asia in the latter part of the 20th century, the Beijing Games are a reminder of a basic truth — one that all the new wealth on display in China cannot hide. The truth is that there is no difference between economic freedom and political freedom. There may be a conceit that economic liberty begets political liberty, that first a country has to develop and then it can take on the trappings and institutions of a multiparty democracy and a free press. In fact, however, economic liberty is political liberty. That is, they are indivisible. They are warp and woof in the fabric of freedom. This is not a Democratic Party or Republican Party notion. One of the best expressions ever made of this idea was by President Carter, who said, in a speech at Notre Dame, that the great industrial nations of the world are not free because they are rich. They are rich because they are free. If we learned anything from the Games in China, it is that the regime there hasn’t understood this principle — a fact that does not detract from the glory of our athletes but stands as a bright, cautionary note for those banking on the Chinese regime in the coming years.