BEIJING — With foreign protests spiralling out of control, Beijing is wavering between old-style censorship and florid displays of anger as it struggles for a response to the biggest crisis to hit its Olympic showcase so far.
Two days of chaos along the Olympic torch route in Paris and London have clearly rattled the Chinese authorities, who are painfully aware that the crisis will continue tomorrow when the Olympic flame arrives in San Francisco for another encounter with a determined band of pro-Tibetan protesters.
The tensions were ratcheted up another notch yesterday as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton urged U.S. President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics because of human-rights abuses in Tibet and Sudan. It was another twist in the public-relations nightmare that now surrounds China's cherished moment in the sun.
China is still officially touting the 137,000-kilometre torch relay as a "Journey of Harmony." But the slogan is rapidly turning to farce as thousands of police and security officers battle on the streets with activists who are trying to disrupt the relay.
Last night, Beijing showed its confusion with a muddled reaction to the latest clashes. Almost all of the chaotic day of protests in Paris was censored from Chinese television. The state broadcasters, making only brief mentions of the incidents, failed to show any pictures of them.
Instead they showed pristine images of the Eiffel Tower and other Paris tourist sites, along with brief scenes of the opening moments of the relay, before the demonstrations began. Sticking to the official script, the state media insisted that the torch was getting a "warm welcome" in Europe.
Foreign broadcasters, including CNN and BBC, were sporadically censored in Beijing yesterday. Television screens repeatedly went blank when the broadcasters showed scenes of the protests.
But the censorship was combined with a loud outburst of angry condemnations of the protesters. Last night, Beijing charged that the demonstrations were "despicable activities" by people who were "tarnishing the lofty Olympic spirit" and "attempting to sabotage" the torch relay.
Since the eruption of violent Tibetan protests in China last month, the Chinese authorities have launched a bitter campaign against Western journalists, calling them "biased" and "unfair" in their coverage of the Tibet issue. Many correspondents in Beijing have received death threats as a result. But if the torch relay was a chance for Beijing to show what it meant by "fair" coverage, it seems to have ignored the opportunity. The Chinese media coverage of the Olympic flame has descended into heavy-handed propaganda, without even a pretense of neutrality.
Last night, China's state media repeatedly described the protesters in Paris as "Tibetan separatists," even though many of the demonstrators have made clear that they want only a limited form of autonomy for Tibet, rather than full independence.
The state news agency, Xinhua, said the "disruptions" by the protesters had "aroused indignation from spectators and sports officials" at the torch relay in Paris. It said the spectators were "very angry" and "greatly annoyed" by the protests. It quoted a Chinese student and another unidentified student "who gave his first name as Mark" who both criticized them.
In a separate report, Xinhua quoted a series of anonymous "netizens" who denounced the "evil nature of Tibetan separatists" at the torch relay. The "unpleasant incident" would "never stop the relay," it said.
The same message was repeated on Chinese television last night. "It's the responsibility of the whole world and all human beings to maintain order and keep the torch relay pure," said an announcer on state television.
The protesters were trying to "shame" China, but they will only humiliate themselves, the television announcer said.
"The smooth progress of the torch relay cannot be stopped and will definitely be a big success," said Wang Hui, communications director at Beijing's Olympic organizing committee. "These Tibetan separatists who dare to challenge the Olympic spirit will be condemned by the people of the world and are doomed to failure."
While admitting that protests had forced organizers to put the Olympic flame onto an accompanying bus in Paris four times yesterday, Beijing denied that the flame was extinguished. Instead it said the "modes" of the relay were merely "temporarily changed to safeguard the security and dignity of the Olympic torch."
