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Olympic Pressure on China,
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Olympic Pressure on China By: Carin Zissis, Staff Write May 4, 2007 Introduction As the countdown to the 2008 Summer Olympics continues, an ascendant China views the Games as a platform for 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 raised concerns over China’s poor record on issues ranging from human rights to the environment. Some activists call for boycotts, while others have gone so far as to dub the 2008 Games the “Genocide Olympics” because of China’s controversial economic investment in Sudan despite the Sudanese government’s role in the Darfur crisis. Meanwhile, the route of the Olympic torch relay has raised hackles in Taiwan and Tibet. Beijing also made pledges to relax press restrictions for foreign journalists through the Games, but whether it keeps its promises or makes these changes permanent remains to be seen.
After winning the 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. As part of this endeavor, China launched its “Welcome the Olympics. Improve Manners and Foster New Attitudes” initiative. As a graphic presentation (PDF) by 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 lead to more extreme measures as well: Human Rights Watch estimates that some three hundred thousand people face relocation because of Olympics-related beautification projects.
Organizations point to increased repression in recent years 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. Whether or not the Summer Games will serve as a catalyst to reverse Chinese repression 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.”
Beijing has been criticized for its role in the Sudan’s Darfur crisis, which 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 investment, Mia Farrow, an actress and former UNICEF spokesman, has led a campaign to dub the Games the “Genocide Olympics” and hopes to shame international sponsors and film producer Steven Spielberg from participating in public relations efforts to support Beijing. Experts disagree on the efficacy of such criticism from outside China. Pei suggests Beijing may moderate its Sudan policy to a slight degree, “but 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.”
China’s Communist Party tightly controls media access and coverage. However, beginning in January 2007, Beijing loosened regulations for foreign journalists, allowing them to report throughout the country without the permission previously required. The eased restrictions—which include journalists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao—will last through the Summer Games, when twenty thousand foreign reporters are expected to descend on Beijing. An Economist reporter tested the new regulations while reporting about HIV/AIDS in a village; local Henan province officials initially tried to bar coverage but, after a call to Beijing, cooperated with the journalist’s request. Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, says, “[I]t is still unclear what kind of access journalists will have to explore sensitive issues such as the situation of internal migrants, ethnic minorities, and rural residents.” She points out that several restrictions remain in place, including bans on interviewing members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement or other minority groups; mandatory visas to enter autonomous regions (such as Tibet); and limits on reporting in Tiananmen Square. It remains unclear if the reforms will remain in place after the Games’ conclusion. 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. Since being awarded the Games in 2001, this has not translated into greater media freedoms for domestic journalists. The U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006, for example, focuses heavily on tight Chinese media restrictions, including for the country’s roughly 140 million Internet users, and says authorities closed some seven hundred online forums in the first half of 2006. As of December 2006, thirty-one journalists were imprisoned in China—more than in any other country in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “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 vice president at Radio Free Asia and a former Asia correspondent. 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.
The Olympics have also shown a spotlight on China's environmental record, amid recent reports (Independent) that it will surpass the United States this year as the world’s biggest 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, a China environment expert, in an article for the Nation. In part because of scrutiny of its environmental record, China pitched the idea of the “Green Olympics,” including standards for water and air pollution in Beijing, as part of the bid to host the games. 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 or relocated chemical and steel plants to mitigate air pollution, and will spend nearly $1.6 billion to improve the city’s water supply. To turn Beijing’s smog-filled skies blue during the Olympics, however, will take some 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. For a three-day trial period in 2006, the city took eight hundred thousand cars off the road and found the amount of nitrogen oxide air pollution decreased (Reuters) by about 40 percent. 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.
When Beijing announced the route of the Olympic torch relay, which passes through more than twenty countries, controversy arose over 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 inclusion of the relay through Tibet also led to an uproar when American activists from Students for a Free Tibet were arrested for protesting the torch route stop on Mount Everest. The four protesters unfurled a banner at Everest Base Camp and used Beijing’s Olympic motto: “One World, One Dream: Free Tibet 2008” to protest the nearly six-decades-old Chinese occupation of Tibet. The Indian city of Dharamshala will host an Olympics for Tibetans in exile. 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 that opened last year.
It remains in question the degree to which international pressure could force China to make real, permanent changes on the environment, expand press freedoms, or respond to foreign criticism over issues such as the Darfur crisis and Tibet. Human Rights in China’s Hom credits the communist country with reforming education and healthcare 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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