Washington gives Beijing selection mixed reviews

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senior Bush administration officials, refusing to turn Beijing's selection as host city of the 2008 Olympic Games into a "political event;" highlighted Friday the "opportunity" the selection gives the communist country, but the move was criticized by one ranking senator.

"The Olympics is not a political event, it's a sporting event," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "It's an opportunity for China to showcase itself as a modern country and as a progressive country. And we would hope that they take that opportunity."

However, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, the ranking Republican on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, called the decision "an endorsement of the government's repression of the Chinese people" and had harsh words for the International Olympic Committee.

"Despite the Olympic Charter's goal of fostering 'respect for universal fundamental ethical principles,' the IOC awarded its most prestigious event, the Summer Games, to a government that arbitrarily imprisons, tortures, murders and harvests the organs of its own people," Helms said in a statement. "No rule of law exists in Communist China today, nor is there the slightest respect there for 'universal fundamental ethical principles.' Muslims, Christians and Tibetan Buddhists are hounded and oppressed by the rulers of the People's Republic of China."

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice defended the IOC, saying it was their decision to make.

"American athletes are going to go there and compete, hopefully very well and bring home lots of medals," she said.