By RNW correspondent Karen Meirik
Radio Netherland Worldwide
March 31, 2008

Straight from Greece: the Olympic flame

Security on Beijing's Tiananmen Square has rarely been as strict as it was for the arrival of the Olympic flame on Monday. For fear of disturbances, even the route the torch was to take to the square was kept secret.

Nothing is to be allowed to spoil the Olympic party. As a precaution before the ceremony, police arrested dissidents, angry farmers, members of Falun Gong and people belonging to ethnic minorities who might be expected to cause trouble. Over the past few days, foreign journalists calling to interview critical intellectuals have heard they were no longer able to talk because they were being kept under surveillance.

No room
Correspondents who initially received an invitation to the torch ceremony were then told there would actually be no room for them in the press stand. No clear explanation was given, but according to a BBC report the Olympic organising committee removed the media from the list of invitees due to security considerations.

Since rioting broke out in Tibet and neighbouring Chinese provinces, the Beijing 2008 organisation has been under growing pressure. Tensions were increased by the protest that disrupted the ceremony to light the Olympic flame in Athens.

The tense atmosphere surrounding the games has resulted in tightened censorship and fiercely nationalistic debate on the internet. Foreign television broadcasters are regularly blacked out and politically sensitive articles in international newspapers and magazines are censored.

That's Beijing, one of the English language cultural magazines in the Chinese capital, has been ordered to change numerous articles which it could have printed without trouble a month ago.

Discussion forums
Chinese language media are even more seriously affected by the censorship. Two Beijing universities temporarily closed down their internal discussion forums, because students were too critical of government action in Tibet. An article on Tibet on Radio Netherlands' Chinese language website was blocked immediately after it was published. Websites critical of the West and Western media remain unaffected.

One attempt to limit the damage to China's image caused by events in Tibet turned out to be a major embarrassment. China invited twelve foreign correspondents to pay a closely stage-managed visit to Tibet. However, they still managed to contact critical monks. Images of an emotional monk telling his story to camera went round the world - except to China.

Evil genius
Ordinary Chinese people therefore get to hear little about all the unrest. The reports they do hear about the Tibetan protests focus on the way Tibetan rioters attacked ethnic Han Chinese and set fire to their houses and shops. The media in Chinese has to stick to the Communist Party propaganda department's strict guidelines, which cite the Dalai Lama as the evil genius behind the continuing unrest.

During the weekend prior to the arrival of the Olympic flame in Beijing, the state news agency Xinhua reported that an anonymous Tibetan monk had admitted receiving instructions for the riots. There was no word of the decision by a number of foreign leaders - including German Chancellor Angela Merkel - not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in August.

Chinese nationalists are furious about Western reporting on Tibet. They claim Tibet has been Chinese for over a thousand years and foreign countries are interfering in Chinese internal affairs. Mistakes some media have made in their reporting - such as printing a photo of a soldier in Nepal with a caption stating it was a Chinese soldier in Tibet - have played into the hands of the nationalists. The Chinese journalists' union has warned foreign journalists that their reporting could affect their media's credibility.

Keep tabs
Now the Olympic flame has arrived in Beijing, the countdown has really begun. Time is running out, not just for the organisation but also for activists who want to get their cases into the spotlight - reason enough for the Chinese authorities to keep as close tabs as possible on national and international media. This contrasts sharply with the promises of greater press freedom China made when it was awarded the games.

*RNW translation (mb)