CNN’s Jaime FlorCruz discusses the cracks in China’s PR machine as the Olympics approach:
Olympic organizers have carefully lined up a calendar of events that climaxes on August 8, when the Games begin inside the brand new National Stadium. They had hoped that China in the coming months could bask in the glow of international praise. Chinese officials promise a “distinctive and a top-rate Olympic Games.” Many Chinese eagerly anticipate the Games as a source of national pride.
The spotlight, however, has moved from cute Olympic mascots to a range of contentious issues, like Beijing’s policies in Sudan and now, the unrest in Tibet. Human rights activists in and outside China are pressuring governments, the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and the athletes, some calling for an outright boycott.
Chinese officials reject those calls, saying the Games are a celebration of athletic excellence and of harmony of athletes and peoples from all over the world.
An example of just such a crack happened this morning as press freedom activists staged a protest during the Olympic torch lighting ceremony. From the Washington Post:
Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee and Beijing Communist Party secretary, was speaking at the ceremony in southern Greece when at least two protesters ran behind him, video footage of the event showed. One of the protesters unfurled a black flag that showed handcuffs in place of the five Olympic rings. Later, a Tibetan woman covered in fake blood lay in the center of a nearby road, blocking the path of a torchbearer. Other demonstrators raised posters reading “Free Tibet.”
Security officials hurried to smother the protests. Three people from the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders were detained, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in the Chinese capital, an activist who penned an open letter urging “human rights, not the Olympics,” was sentenced Monday to the maximum five years in prison for subverting the power of the state. And a former top official who was jailed over the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests added his name to the voices pushing Beijing to sit down with the Dalai Lama over the recent unrest in Tibet.
This topic on the Web, via Google News.
Following video clips are from BBC news, via YouTube:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3sffwdvqvs]
The Wall Street Journal looks at what impact events in Tibet are having on potential investors in the region:
Foreign investors wanting to get into Tibet face a dilemma similar to the one in South Africa during the apartheid era and, more recently, in Myanmar. To gain entry, they must work with the Beijing-appointed government, which is dominated by ethnic Han Chinese. But this is the same government opposed by many indigenous Tibetans, as they demonstrated through their recent protests.
[chart]Economic disillusionment of Tibetans was on display March 14 when thousands of them protested in Lhasa and other cities. Much of the anger was channeled into attacks on symbols of Beijing’s economic grip, including business offices of state companies such as Bank of China Ltd. and China Telecom Corp. Lhasa’s few foreign businesses — mostly restaurants and hotels — were left untouched.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government has accused the Western media of distorting the facts of the situation in Tibet. Xinhua is reporting that the international community supports China’s recent actions in Tibet, quoting officials from Turkmenistan, Cuba, Iraq, and Venezuela, among others.
Citizens at the two extremes of the complicated Tibet issue are also playing out a propaganda war via YouTube, reports Danwei.
