One World, One Dream. This may be the official slogan of this summer’s Beijing Olympics, but China’s real mantra has been something more mundane and in the end, much more problematic: no politics.
After winning the right to host this summer's Olympics, China was ecstatic. It hoped to showcase all it had achieved over the past 30 years since opening up to the outside world. Officials promised the greatest Games ever held. China seemed eager to show the rest of the world how it had changed from a poor, isolated country into one with growing strength and prosperity. Being able to stage the greatest sporting event on earth goes some way to showing other countries that China can now compete on an equal footing. Officially, China talks about the more noble aspects of the Games - promoting sport for all, spreading the Olympic spirit and creating a "green" legacy.
But that kind of colorful language has been quietly dropped. China now says its top priority is simply to provide a safe Olympic Games. Outside criticism has changed all their lofty aspirations of holding the best Olympiad ever.
The resignation of Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg as an artistic director to the Olympic Games in February over what he saw as China's refusal to put pressure on the Sudanese government to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the riots and demonstrations in Tibetan areas in March, and then the angry reception that greeted the torch relay in many international capitals, are just some of the controversies that marred China’s 7 year preparation for this hallowed event.
In elevating the Olympics to an official source of national pride, China has put its most precious commodities on the line: national face. And by investing so much face in the successful execution of the Games, it is making extreme demands on its citizens and on the world.
China’s demands of the world are simple: Smile, approve of us, behave, do not criticize, don't dare protest and, back to the mantra, banish all thoughts of politics from your minds. That’s why it came as no surprise to all that China seemed to backtrack from its earlier assurances of a free access to information regarding China and the Olympics. Several articles have been written decrying the internet censorship being imposed on journalists who are slated to cover the Olympics. Despite earlier assurances that journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues, organizers are now backtracking, meaning that the some 5,000 reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites – this according to an AP report1. An internet search for critical NGOs, international news sources and hot subjects like Tibet and Tiananmen Square Massacre would yield websites that are unavailable, or users find themselves misdirected to pages which simply do not load or return errors. Search denied by the great firewall of China.
When Chinese officials were bidding for the right to hold the games seven years ago, they assured international organizers that there would be ''complete freedom to report.'' The Chinese government promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it would respect free expression in the run-up to the Beijing Games. Wang Wei, secretary general of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, was even quoted saying, ''We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China.''
So what happened to that “complete freedom”? Apparently, that Internet freedom applied only to websites related to ''Olympic competitions.'' This censorship predictably created a backlash in the foreign media. Several critical opinions later and 6 days before the Opening Ceremonies, the Chinese government (in an effort to silence the uproar over the censorship brouhaha) unblocked some of the more high profile sites including Amnesty International Human Rights Watch and the Chinese BBC. However, hundreds if not thousands of sites2 still remain unavailable in China to both the media and its citizens. And not just so-called sensitive sites relating to the Falun Gong movement, Tibet or Tiananmen Square. Huge personal and professional blogging platforms remained totally inaccessible. TypePad -home of many news blogs is blocked, as is LiveJournal, one of the largest personal diary sites.
The International Olympic Committee, caught between the demands of media and the immovable Chinese government blamed this mix-up on miscommunication. It’s a catch-22 situation, really. They are loathe to attack China’s belligerence on this matter due to the opening of the Olympics in a matter of hours, but they must also appear to be strong in their position of upholding right of the media to unfettered access to information as agreed by to by China.
Article 51 of the Olympic Charter obliges the IOC to take “all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games.” One thing the IOC should have done was to ensure that China was on point in all the preparations and necessities of the summer Games. It should not have waited for this issue to remain unresolved this close to the Opening of Olympics.
Perhaps, it was naivete or even wishful thinking on their part when they awarded China the honor of hosting this momentous event. But they should not have expected a severe about-face by China on matters regarding the preservation of its national face. It was a very long stretch indeed, to imagine that China would surrender its communistic tendencies and bend over backwards to appease the demands of the rest of the world.
And so, as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad open tonight, this year’s summer Olympic extravaganza calls upon the world to unite in the Olympic Spirit. Ten thousand, five hundred athletes are expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports. It’s an event where nationalistic pride should not take center stage. In this particular Olympics however, I cannot help but think that we are witnessing not the Games themselves, but rather the spectacle of a nation that is in the midst of breathtaking change and yet clings to habits of statecraft so dated that they seem like relics of the Middle Ages.
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-OLY-China-Internet-Blocked.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
[2]http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pTUl8ENWP_9XsSXjp5s5mFA
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