August 08, 2007
'08 Olympics: 365 Days And Counting...
Today marks the one-year countdown to the opening ceremony of Bejing’s 2008 Olympic Games, an event the communist superpower hopes will draw positive attention from the international community. However, the Chinese government has faced harsh criticisms on a range of issues, from food safety to human rights abuses to complicity in the genocide in Darfur, leaving many to wonder: Is China ready to open itself up to the world?
Immediately after winning its bid for the games, the Chinese government in 2001 released the Beijing Olympic Action Plan, a series of principles and objectives for developing not only the venues for the games, but also an environment conducive to hosting delegations from across the world. One provision was that China would clean up its human rights record and expand press freedoms for domestic and international journalists before the games.
But according to human rights activists, improvements have been feeble at best. Amnesty International on Tuesday released a report that alleges Chinese police are using the Olympic games as a pretext for disproportionately cracking down on petty crime and for detaining people without trial. The group also criticizes China's use of the death penalty, arguing that its application "remains shrouded in secrecy." The former director of China's State Food and Drug Administration was executed on July 10 for allegedly taking bribes and committing serious crimes. Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan says such "ongoing human rights violations go against the core principles of the Olympic Charter, such as 'the preservation of human dignity' and 'respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.'"
Also receiving mixed reviews from the international media has been the state of press freedoms in the often impenetrable nation. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China released a survey [PDF] on August 1 chronicling a long list of harassments of international media professionals working in the country. Forty-three percent of 163 respondents to the FCCC survey said that there have been improvements in the reporting environment since the beginning of 2007 when some restrictions on reporters, including travel bans, were relaxed until October 2008. But 40 percent said that they had experienced some type of interference between January and July of 2007 and 95 percent said that "reporting conditions in China do not meet what they consider to be international standards."
Meanwhile, the Washington Times writes in an op-ed piece that "Chinese journalists and bloggers face the biggest threats of harassment and intimidation." Whereas foreign journalists face expulsion from the country if they are suspected of unlawful activity, Chinese citizens face imprisonment. These violations of press rights have spurred protests in Beijing, Paris and New York.
The games have also highlighted the environmental situation in China, which will likely surpass the United States as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases before next summer. Again, in its bid to win the games, China promised to clean up air and water pollution, calling 2008 the "Green Olympics." But many wonder how the government can possibly improve Beijing’s dismal air quality standards without drastic measures.
For the world community, the final straw just might be Beijing's continued economic ties to the government of Sudan, despite the genocide that has engulfed the Darfur region. China purchases more than two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and recently announced increased military cooperation with the Khartoum regime. This has led actress and activist Mia Farrow to launch a campaign to dub the 2008 games the "Genocide Olympics." Producer Steven Spielberg has threatened to quit his job as artistic advisor to the games if Beijing does not adopt a tougher stance on the crisis.
Here in the U.S., discoveries of tainted food and toxic consumer goods have created a public relations uproar against the poor safety standards of Chinese products. Beijing's initial reaction was to deny culpability, but the Financial Times reports that the government has come up with a plan that allocates $1 billion to improving food safety standards by 2010. Still, many remain skeptical of the safety of Chinese exports, as just last week Fischer-Price announced the recall of nearly 1 million toys originating from there.
What does all of this bad press mean for China and for the '08 games? U.S.-Chinese relations have certainly suffered from the consumer-product scandals, as well as from a belief within political circles that China is manipulating its currency to maintain an economic advantage over international competitors.
In Tuesday's AFL-CIO forum, Democratic presidential candidates were split on the question of whether China is "an ally or adversary." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., responded: "We have to have tougher standards on what they import into this country. I do not want to eat bad food from China or have my children having toys that are going to get them sick. So let's be tough on China going forward." Illinois Sen. Barack Obama classified the country as a "competitor" and insisted that "they don't have to be an enemy as long as we understand that they are going to be negotiating aggressively for their advantage." Sen. Christopher Dodd sounded perhaps the most alarmist of the group, stating: "Let's not have any illusions here. China is investing a great deal of its resources in building up a military capacity."
Finally, U.S. participation in the 2008 games will come into question when Congress returns to Washington in September. A bill was introduced in the House calling for a boycott of the games if China does not address its human rights abuses. It compares the 2008 Olympics to Berlin’s 1936 games, held during the rise of the Nazi Party. The bill, which will be debated before the House foreign affairs committee, says that "the integrity of the host country is of the utmost importance so as not to stain the participating athletes or the character of the games."
The Council on Foreign Relations released a backgrounder on the 2008 Olympics and the Washington Post and New York Times also have coverage of the one-year countdown, highlighting some of these controversial issues.
Posted at 3:45 PM
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Africa, Asia, China, Climate Change, Congress, FDA, Health, House, Olympics, Sudan
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