The ****trait of a Bloody Nosed "Olympic Host": What a Difference of a
Month Makes! -- China feels the heat after dismal Olympic relay
-- Micky's humble opinion: Authors view on "The Olympics are hugely
popular among ordinary Chinese" is a facade that the Chinese government
want others to believe. IMHO, "The Olympics are hugely popular among
ordinary Chinese" is because the Chinese government needs the Olympics
to to boost the Chinese nationalism, in order to further legitimize the
communist regime after the Tiananmen Massacre. The truth is that the
most popular "s****t" in China is a four person playing table top tile
game called "Mahjong", S****ts or s****tsman****p are remotely alien in
most Chinese people's psych. The conflict appeared from torch relay just
proved how much had the west mis-read the Chinese in the past 20 years.
Chinese may be surprised or angered by the reaction from the west, but
the Chinese government had never hide it's resentment towards the "past
wrongs" of the west, only western observers had conveniently overlooked
China's longstanding hostility towards the west, which is glaringly
obvious in most Chinese history text books and writings in China's
official media. --
Financial Times FT.com
ASIA-PACIFIC
China
China feels the heat after dismal Olympic relay
By Geoff Dyer and John Thornhill
Published: May 1 2008 19:36 | Last updated: May 1 2008 19:36
Just over a month ago, a smiling Chinese President Hu Jintao launched
the Olympic torch relay at a televised ceremony in Tiananmen Square,
hailing it as the ※journey of harmony§. Liu Qi, president of the Beijing
games＊ organising committee, went even further, proclaiming: ※The
burning Olympic flame will spread the message of peace and friend****p
and unite all people under one world, one dream.§
As the torch returns to Chinese territory this week for the Hong Kong
leg of the relay, the image of Olympic harmony has been shattered.
Coming a few weeks after riots in Tibet were quashed by the Chinese
military, the torch relay was disrupted by demonstrations in numerous
world cities. In turn, those prompted angry nationalist counterblasts
from many Chinese at home and overseas.
http://www.ft.com/torch
The torch＊s global journey
http://media.ft.com/cms/c4799440-17ab-11dd-b98a-0000779fd2ac.jpg
Olympic torch relay
Chart the torch＊s 136,000km tour with our interactive map and photo
galleries
The Olympic torch has long been a symbol, but the added symbolism this
year has been clear: attitudes to China are hardening in many countries,
while resentment of the west is increasing within China. This is
happening among the populace while policymakers in Beijing and capitals
elsewhere ponder the tensions that the inexorable rise of China will
create.
The events surrounding the torch have helped to drive a wedge between
China and large parts of the rest of the world that could make it harder
for the west to accommodate China＊s increasing im****tance 每 and could
create new domestic problems for China＊s communist government. ※China
wants to convince the world that its rise will be peaceful, but a more
nationalistic China is something that alarms a lot of foreigners,§ says
Minxin Pei, a China specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace in Wa****ngton.
Olympic torch For much of April, China and the rest of the world appear
to have been watching vastly different versions of the torch relay. In
many western countries, news coverage has focused on aggressive Chinese
military police in tracksuits and dark gl***** barking out orders. More
recently, it has featured pro-Tibet demonstrators being assailed by
groups of Chinese students.
※The torch relay fits neatly into an existing image that a lot of people
have in the west of an unchanging China with heavy-handed security
forces and a government that tries to control how people think,§ says
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a history professor at the University of
California, Irvine. ※People have both positive and negative images of
China, but we are moving into a swing where the negative images are
predominating.§
Anxiety about China has been particularly evident in Europe. The public
was already uneasy about China＊s role in the world, equating the country
with intensified economic competition and the offshoring of jobs. But
its crackdown in Tibet highlighted China＊s tough internal politics,
creating a new sense of alarm. This hardening of opinion was shown in an
FT/Harris monthly tracking poll conducted in Europe＊s five biggest
countries between March 27 and April 8. For the first time, Europeans
ranked China as the biggest threat to global stability 每 ahead of the
US, North Korea and Iran.
While criticism has been strongest in Europe and the US, attitudes have
also ****fted among some of China＊s neighbours. This is especially true
in South Korea, where the passage of the torch was accompanied by
confrontations between Chinese students and protesters critical of
China＊s policies towards Tibet and North Korea.
※Anti-Chinese sentiment is growing here after the Chinese students＊
attack on Koreans on Sunday 每 and people are getting angrier now that
Beijing did not apologise for it,§ says Han Suk-hee, a professor at
Yonsei University in Seoul. ※This could be a turning point in Koreans＊
perception towards China. I think public sentiment could turn from
pro-China to anti-China due to this incident.§
Elite opinion has also ****fted in some places. The events in Tibet, in
particular, have prompted many intellectuals to question the common view
that China is these days run by a pragmatic leader****p who will
gradually liberalise the country＊s political life. In a joint article
published in the international press, an author****p as diverse as V芍clav
Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, F.W. de Klerk, the last
white president of South Africa, and Jordan＊s Prince Hassan bin Talal,
president of the Arab Thought Forum, even urged the International
Olympic Committee to reconsider holding the games in China.
※The reaction of the Chinese authorities to the Tibetan protests evokes
echoes of the totalitarian practices that many of us remember from the
days before communism in central and eastern Europe collapsed in 1989:
harsh censor****p of the domestic media, blackouts of re****ting by
foreign media from China, refusal of visas to foreign journalists, and
blaming the unrest on the ＆Dalai Lama＊s conspiratorial clique＊ and
other
unspecified dark forces supposedly manipulated from abroad,§ the group
wrote.
China has won praise in recent years for the conduct of its foreign
policy, using a quiet charm offensive to quell international concerns.
Many low-level disputes with Asian neighbours have been smoothed over
during the past decade. Yet if the perception of a more pushy and
intolerant China takes hold, such diplomacy will be much harder to
conduct.
According to Mark Leonard, executive director of the European Council on
Foreign Relations, China tried to live by the slogan of ※hide your
brightness§ for many years but will face increasing international
scrutiny as its global economic clout grows. ※It is inevitable that
people will focus more attention on China and ask more difficult
questions given that they [Chinese] are buying more oil from Saudi
Arabia than the US and are the biggest foreign investors in Iran and
Sudan,§ he says. ※That has only accelerated with the Olympics. China is
now living in a goldfish bowl where everything they do is being looked
at very closely.§
Indeed, cooling attitudes towards China are presenting some immediate
problems. Many Chinese companies have been looking to invest heavily in
Australia, a country rich in the natural resources China craves. But in
recent weeks Canberra appears to have been dragging its heels on
approving a series of planned investments by Chinese state-owned
companies.
China Investment Cor****ation, Beijing＊s new sovereign wealth fund, has
to weigh such sentiment when it decides how to apply its considerable
finances. Some executives at the fund are pu****ng for it to hand over a
large part of its money to third-party managers to avoid recriminations
about the Chinese government taking large stakes in foreign companies.
Just as the protests in Tibet and the torch relay have ****fted some
western views of China, the same events have served to harden the
attitudes of some in China against the west. If the dominant image in
western coverage of the torch relay was the military police, in China it
has been Jin Jing (left), a torch-bearer in a wheelchair, who was
attacked by a protester in Paris wearing a hat with Tibetan colours. The
story, endlessly retold on state media, has confirmed the impression of
many Chinese that the anti-Beijing protests accompanying the torch were
unreasonable and irrational.
The Olympics are hugely popular among ordinary Chinese 每 a chance for a
country that contains more than one in five of the world＊s population to
boost its national pride and showcase its achievements. As a result, the
attempts to disrupt the torch relay have entrenched the view held by
many Chinese that people in the west are jealous of China＊s recent
success.
Many Chinese are also baffled as to why so many people in the west care
so much about Tibet, which they view as a backward and poor place that
has benefited greatly from Chinese investment in recent years.
※The most im****tant reason for these boycott threats is that westerners
have a lack of knowledge and information about China,§ says Kang
Xiaoguang, a professor at Renmin University of China. ※Even
intellectuals have a lot of misunderstanding towards Tibet and China,
let alone common people. And jealousy for China＊s development is also
involved.§
Nationalist indignation among Chinese, both at home and overseas, has
been the result, including online petitions and incendiary discussions
in internet chatrooms. Carrefour, the French supermarket chain that has
112 stores in China, has faced a series of large demonstrations in
dozens of Chinese cities. A number of foreign journalists have also
received death threats.
The government, which can no longer fall back on Marxist ****bboleths to
justify its hold on power, was at first happy to ****ge along nationalist
outrage through denunciations of the Dalai Lama, attacks on the
perceived bias of the foreign media and strongly worded newspaper
editorials that have played to a sense of victimhood. ※Much of the
western criticism of China＊s human rights record has become discredited
in the eyes of ordinary Chinese,§ says Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a senior fellow
at the Jamestown Foundation in the US.
Yet while the domestic reaction to overseas criticism has strengthened
the position of the Communist party in the short term, it also poses
China＊s rulers a number of challenges.
The nationalist outrage aggravates fears of a rising China, complicating
foreign policy as well as potentially scaring off foreign investors. It
could also make the Olympics much harder to manage. The authorities were
already bracing themselves for protests by the regime＊s critics during
the August games. If the current level of indignation is sustained,
there could also be inhospitable scenes such as the booing of foreign
athletes by Chinese spectators 每 competitors from France, for instance 每
which the organisers hope to avoid.
Moreover, the Chinese government knows that the targets of nationalist
protests can ****ft quickly 每 perhaps to high inflation at home or a
senior leader perceived to be corrupt. It is no surprise, then, that
over the last two weeks, the authorities have tried to damp sentiment,
with the People＊s Daily directing people to express nationalism in a
more ※rational way§.
Last Friday, the government announced it would meet representatives of
the Dalai Lama (although that did not stop fierce criticism of the
Tibetan spiritual leader in official media), while French government
envoys have visited China to try to smooth tensions. Ms Jin, the
disabled athlete attacked in Paris, has been invited on a trip back to
France.
With around 100 days to go before the games start, there is plenty of
time for tempers to cool. Yet the Chinese authorities will be loath to
appear weak in the face of foreign pressure. New concerns over human
rights or further perceived slights to China＊s reputation could
aggravate the difficulties 每 and the underlying tensions the torch relay
has exposed will remain for years to come.
Additional re****ting by Song Jung-a
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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