Olympic Pressure on China
| Authors: | Carin Zissis Preeti Bhattacharji |
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Updated: March 11, 2008
Introduction
As the countdown to the Beijing Olympics continues, China has promoted the Games as an international coming-out party under the slogan, “One World, One Dream.” Since Beijing won the bid to host the games in 2001, however, critics have voiced concerns over China’s poor record on issues ranging from human rights to the environment. Some activists call for boycotts. Other high-profile figures, including the actress Mia Farrow, UNICEF’s former goodwill ambassador, have gone so far as to call the 2008 Games the “Genocide Olympics” because of China’s economic involvement with war-torn Sudan. Even the route of the Olympic Torch, intended as a symbol of the universal spirit of the games, has proven divisive. China’s decision to route the run through both Tibet and Taiwan has pro-independence forces in both places seething. Before winning the games, some of these concerns were anticipated, and China pledged to the International Olympic Committee that it would keep the games “open in every aspect.” Some critics in early 2008 said China has failed to live up to this promise.
Setting the Stage
After winning its bid to host the Games, China released an “action plan” with a series of commitments related to economic and social development, environmental protection, and governance. Beijing pledged in its Olympics strategy “to be open in every aspect to the rest of the country and the whole world.” But Minxin Pei, director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, calls Beijing’s commitments “vague.” He says “the interpretation of such pledges is contentious,” with a divergence of opinion about what they mean inside and outside China. While activists and critics of China’s Communist Party may look for concrete progress on development and human rights, the “kind of measures the government has taken regarding the Olympics are more related to the appearance of Beijing as a nice, livable city,” says Pei.
To improve Beijing’s image, China launched a new initiative: “Welcome the Olympics. Improve Manners and Foster New Attitudes.” As a graphic presentation (PDF) by the non-governmental group Human Rights in China shows, the campaign involves training Beijing residents on etiquette, including control of public spitting, belching, and soup slurping, as well as a monthly “Queuing Awareness Day” to encourage people to line up in an orderly fashion. Urban improvements have led to more extreme measures as well: In its special section on the upcoming Olympics, Human Rights Watch says construction of facilities for the Games in Beijing has involved forced evictions of thousands of citizens in and around the capital, often without adequate compensation or access to new housing.
Rising Repression
Some organizations point to increased repression that runs counter to China’s image-boosting attempts. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China credits the country for economic development accomplishments, which have lifted more than 400 million people out of extreme poverty since the early 1980s. Yet the commission also says that in the past few years Beijing’s attempts to quell domestic unrest and strengthen Communist Party authority “are resulting in a period of declining human rights for China's citizens.” An April 2007 Amnesty International report found that stepped-up repressions overshadow gains made through reforms to the death penalty system and increased press freedoms for foreign journalists.
“A few organizations are attaching some topics to the Olympic Games to slur China's image and to put pressure on the Chinese government.” -- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu
Beijing has condemned what it regards as a politicization of the games at home and abroad. “A few organizations are attaching some topics to the Olympic Games to slur China's image and to put pressure on the Chinese government,” said one Chinese official (Xinhua). Whether or not the Summer Games will serve as a catalyst for political change remains in doubt. During an April 2007 press conference, Hein Verbruggen, a senior official with the International Olympics Committee, responded to questions about holding China accountable on human rights issues by saying, “We are not in a position that we can give instructions to governments as to how they ought to behave.”
The “Genocide Olympics”
Beijing has been criticized for doing business with Sudan at a time when a simmering crisis in the country’s Darfur region has claimed more than two hundred thousand lives and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes. China purchases more than two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports and also provides arms and military aircraft to Khartoum. Although Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the African nation in February 2007 to voice concern about Darfur, and China pressed Khartoum to accept a joint AU-UN peacekeeping force in April, Beijing also announced increased military cooperation with Sudan.
As a result of China’s Sudan investments, Farrow, the actress and former UNICEF spokesman, has led a campaign to dub the games the "Genocide Olympics." She says she hopes to shame international sponsors from participating in public relations efforts to support Beijing. U.S. director Steven Spielberg has also expressed concern with China’s investment in Sudan, and in February 2008 he publicly withdrew as an artistic adviser for the games, claiming that China “should be doing more” to end the “continued human suffering” in Sudan.
Experts disagree on the efficacy of such outside criticism. Pei suggests Beijing may moderate its Sudan policy to a slight degree, but adds that “if the level of shrillness is too high, then nothing will be accomplished.” He believes increased criticism from abroad will only serve to unite the Chinese government and the people. But Princeton N. Lyman, a CFR adjunct senior fellow and Africa expert, says Beijing is watching U.S. public opinion on how it handles Khartoum. “As they get closer to the Olympics they will try to demonstrate their cooperation more and more on Sudan.”
Press Regulations
China’s Communist Party tightly controls media access and coverage. But in January 2007, Beijing began to loosen regulations for foreign journalists, allowing them to report throughout the country without the permission previously required. The eased restrictions—which also apply to journalists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao—are supposed to last through the Summer Games, when twenty-thousand foreign reporters are expected to descend on Beijing. It remains unclear if the reforms will stay in place after the Games’ conclusion, but they are currently scheduled to elapse in October 2008.
An Economist reporter tested the new regulations while reporting about HIV/AIDS in a village in Henan. Local officials initially tried to bar coverage but, after a call to Beijing, they cooperated with the journalist’s request. Ashley W. Esarey, an expert on Chinese media at Middlebury College, says in a podcast that the relaxed laws for foreign journalists serve as a Communist Party “experiment” to test out less restrictive media regulations. He warns the laws “will be rescinded if they’re seen as jeopardizing the Communist Party’s hold on power,” particularly if the openness inspires Chinese journalists to seek greater freedoms themselves.
180 foreign reporters were arrested, attacked, or threatened in China in 2007, despite the supposedly relaxed regulations. The number of journalists imprisoned in China has risen in recent years, from fourteen in 2001 to at least thirty-two today. -- Reporters Without Borders
According to Reporters Without Borders, 180 foreign reporters were arrested, attacked, or threatened in China in 2007, despite supposedly relaxed regulations. The number of journalists imprisoned in China has risen in recent years, RWB says, from fourteen in 2001 to at least thirty-two by 2008. An additional fifty “cyber-dissidents” have been imprisoned for publishing restricted material on the Internet.
The U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007 highlights China’s rigid media restrictions, including restrictions on the country’s roughly 210 million Internet users. The report says Chinese authorities at times blocked access to selected sites operated by major foreign news outlets, health organizations, foreign governments, and educational institutions. “For foreign journalists, the worst that can happen to them is they can throw them out of the country. Domestic journalists get thrown in jail,” says Dan Southerland, a veteran Asia correspondent who now direct editorial operations for the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Asia. Southerland expresses doubts about the Olympics resulting in tangible press reforms, yet expresses hope that Chinese bloggers could present a challenge to media controls. In an article for the Jamestown Foundation, he credits bloggers with breaking the story of Wu Ping, a resident of the southern city of Chongqing who challenged authorities attempting to forcibly evict her.
Turning Beijing Green
The Olympics have also spotlighted China’s environmental record, amid recent reports (Independent) that it will soon surpass the United States as the world’s leading greenhouse gas emitter. If China’s development strategy continues on its current course, the country’s emissions will surpass those of all industrialized countries combined over the next quarter century, writes CFR’s Elizabeth C. Economy in an article for the Nation. In part because of scrutiny of its environmental record, China pitched the idea of the “Green Olympics,” including new standards for water and air pollution in Beijing, as part of the bid to host the games.
Beijing may moderate its Sudan policy to a slight degree, “but if the level of shrillness is too high, then nothing will be accomplished.” -- Minxin Pei, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The city has made some strides to meet its promises, with air quality improving each year for the past six years. Beijing has closed factories and relocated chemical and steel plants to mitigate air pollution, and plans to spend nearly $1.6 billion to improve the city’s water supply in advance of the Olympics. To turn Beijing’s smog-filled skies blue during the Olympics, however, will take some more drastic—but temporary—measures to resolve the city’s environmental problems. One idea is to cut back the number of cars in Beijing, which currently tally more than three million, during the Games. In a four-day test in 2007, the city took 1.3 million cars off the road (Reuters) to see if it would reduce air pollution in preparation for the Games. Technicians with Beijing’s Weather Modification Office will also use a method known as “cloud-seeding” (AP) to force rain and clean the city’s air.
Carrying the Torch
When Beijing announced the route of the Olympic torch relay, which passes through more than twenty countries, controversy arose surrounding planned stops in Taiwan and Tibet. Taipei claimed that planning its stop to occur before the torch reaches Hong Kong was intended to make Taiwan appear part of the Chinese domestic leg (Taipei Times). Beijing’s Olympics Committee countered the claim by arguing Taiwan had previously agreed to the stop. The International Olympic Committee set September 20, 2007, as the deadline for resolving the dispute, and when negotiators failed to meet the deadline, the route was redirected to bypass Taiwan (BBC).
The inclusion of Tibet in the relay also led to controversy. In April 2007, American activists from Students for a Free Tibet were arrested for protesting the torch’s scheduled stop on Mount Everest. The four protesters unfurled a banner at Everest Base Camp that said, “One World, One Dream: Free Tibet 2008,” to protest nearly six decades of Chinese control over Tibet. The Indian city of Dharamshala will host an Olympics for Tibetans in exile. Yet experts say China is unlikely to reverse its position on its occupation of Tibet, given its increasing entrenchment in the region and investment in an expensive train to carry tourists there in 2006.
Keeping Promises
It remains in question whether international pressure will stir China to expand press freedoms, shift long-term environmental policy, or change policy on hotly controversial topics like Darfur and Tibet. Human Rights in China’s executive director, Sharon Hom, credits Beijing with reforming education and health care and increasing funds for social services. But she says these changes could be in response to domestic unrest and international monitoring bodies as much as pressure related to the Olympics. “It is clear that any reforms will be limited by the key political imperative to maintain political and social control,” says Hom. She recommends that China release a “public progress report” on its Olympics pledges so it can be held accountable in a transparent manner.
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