Ways That Are Dark

Yesterday Beijing observed the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics with fireworks and dancing in Tiananmen Square. Sun Ruoyu lives a few blocks away in a two-story building that has belonged to her ancestors since the 1840s. Miss Sun is guarding her home with her life because local officials want to evict her. A bulldozer waits outside for an opportune moment to begin demolition.

In the article In Beijing, a Little Building Is Defying Olympic Ambitions, The New York Times reports that a “recent study by a European research institute estimated that 1.5 million people would be evicted or displaced in Beijing by the opening of the Olympics.” Local media has not reported on Miss Sun’s case, as forced evictions are a politically sensitive subject in China.

While Sun’s family has been offered compensation for their home and business, the money offerd has not been adequate.  The government wants to use the land her home is on to make a park for the Olympics. Afterwards the land will be developed as a residential and commercial area in what is expected to become one of the city’s priciest districts.

Miss Sun has said:

No matter what they offer, I won’t be able to afford an apartment here. I want to be able to live here. They’ve used the Olympics to strip people of their property. They’re doing things against the spirit of the Olympics.

Read the complete Times article: In Beijing, a Little Building Is Defying Olympic Ambitions.

The Washington Post reports that a day after a small group of foreigners challenged Beijing to honor its Olympic commitments, a group of prominent Chinese dissidents and intellectuals also called on the government to honor its human rights commitments.

The open letter posted Tuesday on the Internet represented a different — and perhaps more difficult — challenge for Beijing. Signed by 40 Chinese men and women widely known for scholarly work or anti-government agitation, the appeal seemed harder to dismiss than complaints lodged by foreign groups.

The Chinese government has violated promises it made to secure the Olympic Games, the letter said, by jailing dissidents, pushing poor people from their homes to build stadiums and keeping censorship in place for Chinese journalists and artists.

The Chinese government has warned that attempts to politicize next year’s games will fail. Of course, using the Chinese capital as Olympic venue in order to show off the success of Communist Party rule is also a kind of political grandstanding.

Read the Post article Before Olympics, a Call for Change.

Two separate reports were released this week, accusing China of breaking its promise to grant foreign journalists freedom to cover the Olympics openly and objectively. One of the reports has the rather long title You Will Be Harassed and Detained: Media Freedoms Under Assault in China Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Asia director of Human Rights Watch is quoted as saying:

The ongoing harassment and detention of journalists make Beijing’s Olympic pledge on media freedoms seem more like a public-relations ploy than a sincere policy initiative.

The article, China detaining journalists, is part of CNN’s extensive Beijing Countdown coverage. Also this week, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists have voiced similar complaints. The Committee to Protect Journalists released a statement warning:

China’s poor press freedom landscape could hinder visiting reporters covering the Games and may have a lasting negative effect on local journalists once the international spotlight has faded. Unless things change, and soon, reporters who venture beyond the Olympic village should be prepared to work in an environment where official interference and detentions of journalists are common and sources are at risk.

The New York Times reported today in China Under Fire Over Media Curbs Ahead Of Games that Reporters Without Borders held a news conference in Beijing calling for greater media freedom. After the conference several journalists were kept from leaving for up to two hours with no explanation.

Reporters Without Borders said China had made specific promises when it was awarded the Games that it would improve press freedom and human rights.

Also this week, Telegraph correspondent Richard Spencer blogs about press freedom in Beijing. In his Beijing Olympics: the countdown begins entry, he writes about watching his fellow journalists on TV in Beijing, only to have their reports blocked in China. When asked on air to discuss the blocking, the report was blocked again.

Can you blame China for not keeping all their promises? Simply hosting the Olympics is seen as a victory for the Communist Party. They were naturally willing to say anything in order to host the games. In a country run by ageing technocrats, who have never had to answer questions from their own people, pesky foreign journalists are becoming bothersome. The authorities are irritated when foreign journalists ask them awkward questions about not keeping their promises. They would prefer the foreign press only write on positive aspects of the games, as in mandated in domestic media. It’s kind of like inviting someone over, and asking them to make themselves feel at home. Then you demand they behave the way you want them to. That’s not quite what hosting international events is all about.

The real countdown to next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing has begun, and Beijing Olympic officials are trying hard to educate the public about potentially offensive behavior. The question is, can people clean up their bad habits in time for the games? And more importantly, will the government’s plans have any long-lasting influence?

In the article Organizers strive for a ‘civilized’ sheen, CNN interviews a sociology professor from Hong Kong’s Chinese University who says:

Changes to public manners should not be enforced from the top-down. But rather it entails a fundamental change within the mindset of the people — a bottom up phenomenon.

If it is solely a form of political slogan, it will only make the population feel sick and tired.

A Beijing businesswoman interviewed for the article adds:

The government is putting in so much money and effort to elevate the inner quality of its citizens. We see those slogans about being civilized everywhere but there does not seem to be any substance behind the words.

It is impossible to change manners in a year. The whole populace must reach the critical point that the majority will adhere to good mannerisms.

Time will tell what impression Beijingers make on the world in 2008. Until now, the emphasis on good manners has been solely about “saving face,”by not looking uncouth in front of foreign tourists. Nothing has been said about the public bettering their manners for their own sake. The people of Beijing will still have to live with one another long after the games are over.

The Associated Press reports that China is gathering information on foreigners who might try to use the 2008 Olympics as an opportunity to protest a variety of things.

China’s intelligence services are gathering information on foreigners who might protest and spoil the nation’s moment in the spotlight during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Spy agencies and research organizations compiling lists of potentially troublesome groups are looking beyond the usual suspects, human rights groups, at evangelical Christians demanding religious freedom, Darfur advocates wanting Beijing to use its oil-buying leverage with Sudan to end the strife there, and environmental campaigners angry about global warming, security experts and a consultant familiar with the effort said. (Source: China: Identifying Olympic Troublemakers)

No mention of terrorism or public safety, issues that host countries often pay the most mind.

Also this week, it has emerged on several China blogs that the government is toughening up its visa requirements between now and the Olympics. The new rules don’t seem to be aimed at tourists, but more specifically at foreign English teachers, expats and other people who regularly travel to China on business.

The Today in China blog writes:

I received the following notification from the company for which I’m working.

In the meeting held by the Exit & Entry Administration Ministry of Beijing on July 12, 2007 afternoon, expats’ visa application process were revised as following:

From July 16,2007 till the end of the Olympic games in 2008, in order to ensure the security of Beijing, during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Ministry of Public Security will carry on strictly foreign management in China.

1. If applicants enter China with L, F visa, the visa cannot be transformed to other visa types. (Except for the applicant’s job title is above vice president, legal representative of the company, director, or foreign representative office’s leader).
2. The urgent application (express visa service) cannot be accepted by the government for the time being.
3. When foreigners with L, F visa need to extend their staying in Beijing, the applicants need to do the visa extension personally, and need to present the company’s business license as supporting.
4. The applicants applying for the residence permit for the first entry will need to the application personally; also need to present the company’s business license as supporting.
5. The applicants who apply for the residence permit extension need to provide their employment permits, or the representative permits and company’s business license as supporting.

The original post is Visa application & extension process revision.

The online edition of Time includes a neat little exposé on the harsh realities facing China’s athletes when they retire.

According to the China Sports Daily, nearly 80% of China’s 300,000 retired athletes are struggling with joblessness, injury or poverty. Many athletes suffer from sports injuries and health problems caused by their training.

The Time article follows the appalling legacy of female weightlifter Zou Chunlan. Recruited at an early age, Zou was required to take pills that her coach claimed were “nutrition boosters.” They made her grow a beard and develop a prominent Adam’s apple and a deep voice. She is now infertile and must shave every couple of days.

When Zou Chunlan left school to become a professional athlete, her recruiting coach assured the 13-year-old that the nation’s huge sports bureaucracy would look after her for the rest of her life. All she had to worry about was winning. For a decade, Zou followed his advice, winning the 48-kg national weightlifting title in 1990 when she was 19 years old and pocketing four other national championships. But when she retired in 1993, Zou discovered that the coach’s side of the bargain wasn’t going to be met. After three years of menial jobs in the women’s weightlifting team’s kitchen, she was asked to leave.

With her little education and total ignorance of the real world, Zou had little choice but to turn to physical labor. After stints carrying sacks on a construction site and selling lamb kebabs in the street, she ended up as a masseuse in a public bathhouse earning $60 a month. Her fate isn’t unusual. A weightlifting coach explained to the Beijing News that Zou wasn’t the only retired weightlifter struggling with the real world. “Zou’s national medals are worthless. There are world champions who end up jobless after retirement.”

It is shocking treatment in a country that places a great deal of importance on winning athletic competitions. Much like the Soviet Union before them, China sees athletic competitions as a means of strengthening nationalism and providing a measuring stick to other countries such as the United States. We are sure to see in the upcoming Beijing Olympics that little matters more than the total medal count. The athletes that have given their entire lives to building the image of a strong socialist nation, could soon find themselves in menial jobs after the games are over.

Read the complete China’s Disposable Athletes on the Time website.