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PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND THE BEIJING OLYMPICS: NARRATIVES AND COUNTER NARRATIVES
OCT 8, 2008 - 10:26AM PDT
by Meg Young
The overall narrative for these Olympics seems somewhat ambivalent: “they were a rousing success, but...” But they could only take place in a totalitarian country where the government can direct resources at will towards any national project. But the protest zones were left empty and some of those wanting to protest were arrested after they filed their paperwork. But…But…But… These codas marring an otherwise perfect Olympic performance may trouble a few perfection-seeking souls in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but the overall public diplomacy impact of China’s Olympics seems to have been positive. International audiences did not learn much more beyond what they already knew about issues most sensitive to the CCP, particularly the Tibet situation: namely, that it is bad, and that China should “Free Tibet,” but quite why or how remained unclear through most of the international press’ reporting. However, these same audiences learned a lot more about the rest of China from a variety of trusted and familiar sources: local news anchors, bloggers, newspaper writers, and national news reporters. They saw snippets on unusual Chinese food and heard about amazing cultural sites. They were bombarded with images of a clean and modern Beijing, and they saw a world-class event pulled off without a hitch. This CPD Media Monitor followed the media coverage surrounding the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China from April to September 2008. The Monitor sought to highlight the narrative differences between the English-language Chinese press, particularly the government run news outlet Xinhua, and the international English-language press. By providing a comparison between the official Chinese Olympic narrative and the international media’s Olympic narrative, the Beijing Olympics Media Monitor provided a look at China’s effort at public diplomacy through the Olympics. Sometimes the local coverage and the international coverage converged, as it frequently did on stories about the spectacle of the Olympics and the rich culture of China, and at times the coverage diverged, particularly on issues related to human rights and media openness. The Beijing Olympics Media Monitor focused on five main areas of interest: Human Rights Local News Coverage / International News Coverage; Environmental Issues Local News Coverage / International News Coverage; Culture Local News Coverage / International News Coverage; Chinese Power Local News Coverage / International News Coverage; Media Local News Coverage / International News Coverage. Each of these subjects saw narratives emerge in the international press that were both favorable to and highly critical of China. The official Chinese press, on the other hand, always sought to put the best spin possible on any given issue. Through the course of the coverage it seemed clear that the strict narrative of the Chinese government would not be the story told by the international press regardless of how much the government tried to control press access to locations, the internet, or even at times their equipment. Whether or not the Chinese government’s narrative was the one the world heard seems, ultimately, to have mattered very little because at the end of the…... FULL TEXT
Human Rights – Local
Immigrators embrace Beijing Olympic torch with enthusiasm
(XinHua, 15 Jun 2008)
Immigrators from the Three Gorges region celebrated the Beijing Olympic torch relay with enthusiasm when it kicked off in heavy rains in Wanzhou, Chongqing, Southwestern China Sunday morning.
Why Washington plays 'Tibet Roulette' with China
(China Daily, 16 Apr 2008)
Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk geopolitical game with Beijing's by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.
China rights group disputes Amnesty International report
(China Daily, 2 Apr 2008)
The China Society for Human Rights Studies on Wednesday criticized Amnesty International's comments on the country's human rights record in the run-up to the Olympics. "We firmly oppose attempts by any organization to slander and attack China under the pretense of human rights, and firmly oppose the attempts by any organization to put pressure on China using the Olympics," the Chinese rights group said in a statement.
Chinese Canadians protest against Tibet riots, media's distorted coverage
(XinHua, 15 Apr 2008)
Some 10,000 Chinese Canadians and Chinese students held a rally in Ottawa Sunday to voice anger at Tibetan separatists' violence in Lhasa and western media's distorted coverage.
Tibet regional chairman: Tibet people real beneficiaries of reform, development
(XinHua, 10 Apr 2008)
People of various nationalities living in Tibet have benefited from reform and development, said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet autonomous regional government, here on Wednesday.
Beijing Olympic official strongly condemns disruption of torch relay in Paris
(XinHua, 9 Apr 2008)
A Beijing Olympic official has strongly condemned the disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Paris by a very small number of "Tibet independence" secessionists and a handful of so-called human rights-minded NGO activists.
What issue is "Tibet issue"?
(People's Daily, 15 Apr 2008)
Dalai Lama clique has made repeated appeals and statements to impose pressure or punitive measues upon China, and Nancy Pelosi of the United States and others of her ilk also kept up noises and uproars. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, and the European Parliament (EP) have passed resolutions on Tibet one after another. So the so-called "Tibet issue" has become increasingly fashionable.
Tibet regional chairman: Situation in Tibet returns to normal
(People's Daily, 10 Apr 2008)
The head of Tibet Autonomous Regional government says the situation in Tibet has returned to normal after the riot of March 14th. Qiangba Puncog made the remarks today in Beijing, during a news conference on the situation in Tibet.
Pranks cannot resist the brilliance of Olympic sacred fire
(People's Daily, 10 Apr 2008)
With the blessing of the entire world, the sacred Olympic flame is being relayed by thousands of torchbearers across five continents. As the supreme image of Olympic spirit, the torch carries a shared dream of the humankind. Through its relay, people of different races in different regions with different beliefs share the civilized concepts of"peace, friendship and progress". It is also precisely for this reason that the 2008 torch relay has been welcomed and supported by nations and their populace in its global journey.
Commentary: Prejudice cannot take the place of facts
(CCTV, 9 Apr 2008)
As the truth about Lhasa riots has been brought to light and the violence by Tibet separatists came under condemnation of international community, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have proposed a resolution, urging the Chinese government to "end its crackdown" in Tibet and "enter into a substantive dialogue" with Dalai Lama.
China says boycotting Beijing Olympics would only invite humiliation
(People's Daily, 2 Apr 2008)
China said on Tuesday if any foreign officials boycotted the Beijing Olympic Games, they were boycotting a grand event that belonged to the world's people, and would only invite humiliation.
Police: Offensive weapons found in Tibetan temples
(CCTV, 3 Apr 2008)
A large quantity of offensive weapons suspected to be used for riots were discovered in several Tibetan temples, China's Ministry of Public Security said here on Tuesday.
China Focus: Tibet ready to geet Olympic torch
(XinHua, 19 Jun 2008)
Tibet is to greet the Olympic torch with flowers and distinctive folk dances, when it arrives in the regional capital of Lhasa on Saturday. The images of five Fuwas, mascots of the Beijing Olympics, are displayed in flowers in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. The city's main streets are decorated with signboards carrying slogans, such as "Light the Passion, Share the Dream," "Bless the Motherland, Joyfully Greet the Olympics," "Great Ethnic Unity" and "Welcome to Lhasa."
Tibetan woman carries torch for third time in 18 years
(XinHua, 21 Jun 2008)
Dawa Yangzom, a 32-year-old teacher at Tibet University, joined the other 155 torchbearers in the Olympic torch relay in Lhasa Saturday. It was the third time in her life to carry torch for important sports events. "I couldn't be prouder, knowing I am showing the rest of China and the world the very best of Tibet," Dawa told Saturday's China Daily.
Olympic flame moves people as torch relayed on International Olympic Day
(XinHua, 24 Jun 2008)
The Olympic torch was relayed along the Qinghai Lake on Monday, the second stop of its Qinghai leg in "Journey of Harmony". Compared with the flame's travel in many big cities, its arrival in the pastoral Qinghai Lake is a special event for local Tibetans and other ethnic residents. Many of them came to the lakeside one or two days ago, waiting for the flame.
Tibet not open to global debate, spokesman says
(China Daily, 2 Jul 2008)
China expressed on Tuesday its resolute opposition to discussing the Tibet situation in any form at international conferences, saying the issue is an internal affair. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Tibet should not be linked to the Olympic Games, which was seen as a response to comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said his attendance at the Games' opening ceremony would depend on the progress of talks between the Chinese government and the private representative of the Dalai Lama.
Carrefour reiterates support for Olympics
(Xinhua, 29 Apr 2008)
French supermarket chain Carrefour and its employees regretted over the disruption of the Beijing Olympic torch relay in Paris and fully supported the Olympics, a senior official said on Monday.
Efforts intensify in handling petition, complaints prior to Olympics
(Xinhua, 5 Jul 2008)
China's public security organs at all levels are being urged to put greater efforts into handling petitions to safeguard citizen's lawful rights and create a favorable environment for the upcoming Olympics.
4 Foreign Nationals Ordered to Leave China
(China Daily (Xinhua), 6 Aug 2008)
Two Americans and two British nationals have been ordered to leave China "within a prescribed time limit" after displaying "Free Tibet" banners near an Olympic venue in Beijing on Wednesday, local police said. "They disrupted public order and violated Chinese laws. Their period of stay in the country will hereby be cut short according to the Law of the People's Republic of China on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens," the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.
Tibet Activists Take to Tiananmen
(South China Morning Post, 10 Aug 2008)
[Video] Five foreign activists from Students for A Free Tibet protested at Tiananmen Square on Saturday, the second day of the Olympics. The group's founder John Hocevar says non-violent protests will continue.
Human Rights – International
Rudd says he'll go to Beijing
(The Canberra Times, 20 Jun 2008)
Months of speculation over whether Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would attend the Beijing Olympic Games ended yesterday when he announced he would be attending the opening ceremony and ''the first few'' events. The decision brought an immediate rebuke from Greens senator Bob Brown, who said Mr Rudd's ''predictable'' decision raised the question of why he had kept Australia waiting so long. He said the Government had done nothing since the bloodshed in Tibet in March to lift Beijing's suppression of seven million Tibetans.
Rights advocates risk backfire in Olympic activism
(The Guardian, 2 Jul 2008)
Western activists trying to use Beijing's staging of the Olympic games as an opportunity to promote civil rights risk provoking resentment among the Chinese people, U.S. China analysts say.
Chinese vent anti-Western fury online
(The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Apr 2008)
Bloggers are now calling for boycotts and stoking death threats over perceived insults from Westerners who have criticized China's human rights record ahead of this summer's Olympic Games.
Protesters March in Advance of Torch in India
(The New York Times, 18 Apr 2008)
Hundreds of Tibetan protesters marched through central Delhi on Thursday morning shouting "Die for Freedom" hours before the Olympic torch was due to be carried through the Indian capital.
Beyond the “genocide Olympics”
(The Economist, 24 Apr 2008)
This new consensus is reflected by the lack of serious opposition to a new report by John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on Human Rights, which proposes a new framework that states clearly that firms have a responsibility actively to respect human rights. If this is adopted by the Human Rights Council in June, as seems likely, it will be the first time that the UN human-rights machinery has taken a substantive position on companies’ responsibilities.
Politics Doesn't Belong at Olympics, Says UN Sport Advisor
(Deutsche Welle, 26 Apr 2008)
"Unfortunately, human rights are violated in many countries in the world. It's wrong to push this problem off onto the IOC. These issues should be brought up with political bodies, human rights organizations and the UN. I think it's the wrong approach to demand that sports organizations solve these political problems just a few weeks before the Olympic Games. But it is the view of the IOC that the athletes -- as responsible citizens -- have the right to express themselves on political issues."
Olympic Torch Protesters Attacked in South Korea
(The New York Times, 28 Apr 2008)
Thousands of young Chinese who assembled to defend their country’s troubled Olympic torch relay pushed through police lines here on Sunday, some of them hurling rocks, bottled water and plastic and steel pipes at protesters who were demanding better treatment for North Korean refugees in China.
Cheers outweigh protest at Hong Kong's Olympic torch relay
(The Christian Science Monitor, 2 May 2008)
Hong Kong immigration officials held Ms. Farrow for questioning on her arrival Thursday but allowed her to enter, and she spoke out Friday on Darfur. That was a smart PR move, given her international profile, says David Zweig, director of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He says that far from surrendering free speech, Hong Kong has continued its role since 1997 as the most cosmopolitan and democratic corner of China, and a refuge for dissenting voices.
In China, the game has changed
(Los Angeles Times, 15 Jun 2008)
Playing host to the Olympics may be forcing new ways on the rigid regime. Nowhere is this change more evident than in its policy toward Sudan, where Beijing's stance has undergone a quiet revolution. Change is afoot in China's policy toward Myanmar as well. Beijing's newfound flexibility in foreign policy, however, has not been matched by a new regard for Chinese human rights.
China clampdown for Olympic torch in Xinjiang
(AFP, 15 Jun 2008)
China has tightened controls on Muslims in its remote west ahead of the Olympic torch's arrival next week to thwart any actions aimed at disrupting the relay, residents and exiles said. The measures include detaining thousands in the Xinjiang region and forcing Muslim religious officials to undergo "political education" on "protecting" the Olympics, said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur Congress.
China Urges People in Restive Xinjiang to Watch Olympic Relay at Home
(Voice of America, 16 Jun 2008)
The people of Xinjiang in far western China, including millions of ethnic Uighurs, have been advised to stay home during their Olympic torch relay on Tuesday "for safety reasons."
Good day to remember John Carlos and Tommie Smith
(USA Today, 5 Jun 2008)
John Carlos and Tommie Smith are worth remembering as U.S. athletes headed to Beijing are being told to sign promises they won't address political issues while in China. So, does that mean that if there's a government crackdown on dissidents or a blatant abuse of basic human freedoms while they're in China that our athletes are just supposed to pretend it didn't happen?
Pro-Tibetan activists protest in Greece
(AP, 6 Jun 2008)
A small group of pro-Tibetan activists protested Friday outside an Athens hotel where top IOC officials were meeting on the last of a three-day conference.
China says stop Tibet protests to advance talks
(Reuters, 10 Jun 2008)
China calls on the Dalai Lama and his supporters to halt Tibet protests and attempts to "ruin the Olympics," in order to create the conditions for future roundtable talks.
Tight security for Olympic torch in China's Xinjiang
(International Herald Tribune, 19 Jun 2008)
Heavy security accompanied the Olympic torch through China's restive west, offering a preview of the heavy-handed measures expected when it travels through riot-torn and still sequestered Tibet later in the week. Shops and roads were closed and people were kept off the streets Wednesday in a security clampdown to safeguard the torch as it wound its way through predominantly Muslim Kashgar in China's far western Xinjiang, where separatists have waged a low-level insurgency against Chinese rule.
Olympics add to security misery in China's far west
(Reuters, 19 Jun 2008)
Residents and rights groups say the last few months in the lead up to the summer Games, which open on August 8, have been marked by an increasingly heavy crackdown and an ever more onerous public security burden. Local people say they were told to stay at home for the Olympic torch relay, and were even barred from watching the torch's passage from their balconies. Shops were ordered bolted shut, prompting quiet yet cautious complaints from residents long used to tough restrictions.
China rights questioned weeks before Olympics
(Reuters, 19 Jun 2008)
China promised to make improvements to human rights ahead of the Olympic Games but its record may have actually deteriorated in the run-up to the events in August, a human rights activist and writer says. In its bid to host the 2008 Olympics, China promised such improvements as greater press freedoms but author Minky Worden says the opposite has been true.
China to bar people with AIDS, other diseases from Olympics
(USA Today, 20 Jun 2008)
China is putting out the welcome mat for foreign tourists during the Olympics -- as long as they're not sick. Kyodo News reports that Beijing plans to bar foreigners with certain medical conditions from entering the country during the games. The Japanese news organization says Beijing's list includes: yellow fever, cholera, venereal disease, leprosy, infectious pulmonary tuberculosis and AIDS.
Bach on Beijing
(Reuters, 26 Jun 2008)
IOC vice president Thomas Bach has been one of the most eloquent opponents of any boycott of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. When asked about comments last week from Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s Chinese Communist party boss: “We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.” Bach responded “I don’t consider that to be an acceptable formulation, especially at the Olympic torch relay.” “It’s essential that one carefully chooses the right words — there is after all a dialogue going on now with representatives of the Dalai Lama."
China reopens Tibet to foreigners three months after riots
(Press Trust of India (PTI), 26 Jun 2008)
Tibet was thrown open to foreign tourists today, more than three months after it was kept out of bounds in the wake of unrest following the worst anti-China protests in two decades in the remote Himalayan region.
Activists Warned on Olympic Protests
(The New York Times, 27 Jun 2008)
In the latest sign of efforts to prevent dissent during the Beijing Olympics, political activists in Shanghai say they have been warned against expressing their opinions, speaking with foreigners or visiting Beijing until after the Games. The activists, who have petitioned the city government over grievances in the past, say they were summoned by the police, or detained and issued warnings against making political statements before or during the Games.
China denies politicising Games
(BBC News, 26 Jun 2008)
China has denied politicising the Olympic Games following a rebuke by the International Olympic Committee over remarks made by an official in Tibet. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sent a letter "regretting" remarks made during a ceremony marking the passage of the torch through Tibet.
Flap over China, Darfur clouds marketing effort
(Boston Herald, 30 Jun 2008)
Companies sponsoring this summer’s Beijing Olympics seek the thrill of advertising victory - but risk the agony of public-relations defeat. The games are more than six weeks away, but Boston activists have already hit Volkswagen and Framingham-based Staples with protests over sponsorship of the event. Critics picketed a Boston Volkswagen dealership this month and held an anti-Staples protest on Boston Common in April.
U.S. lawmakers decry Olympics after dissidents blocked
(Reuters, 1 Jul 2008)
Two U.S. Congressmen on Tuesday urged President George W. Bush to rethink attending the Beijing Olympic Games after they were prevented from meeting Chinese human rights activists.
Bush to Attend Opening Ceremony in Beijing
(The New York Times, 4 Jul 2008)
The White House said Thursday that President Bush would attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics next month, a decision fraught with international political symbolism that quickly drew criticism from advocates for human rights.
Chinese, Tibetans begin 2-day talks
(Chicago Tribune, 3 Jul 2008)
Chinese and Tibetan envoys on Tuesday began their first formal talks since bloody protests swept Tibetan areas of western China three months ago, in a dialogue that may affect the Olympic Games here next month. Chinese and Tibetan envoys on Tuesday began their first formal talks since bloody protests swept Tibetan areas of western China three months ago, in a dialogue that may affect the Olympic Games here next month.
Beijing faces Olympic challenges
(BBC, 8 Jul 2008)
With a month to go before the Beijing Olympics, China remains plagued by a number of problems including critical human rights reports and pollution.
Around the World, Activists Assemble to Press China on Rights
(Washington Post, 9 Jul 2008)
Marking the one-month countdown to the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, activists gathered in New York and in cities around the world Tuesday to call on China to ease crackdowns on dissenters and release political prisoners.
China warns of Muslim terrorist threat ahead of Olympics
(AFP, 9 Jul 2008)
China insisted on Thursday it faced a serious terror threat in its Muslim-majority far northwest ahead of the Olympics, as it announced 82 "suspected terrorists" had been detained there this year.The 82 belonged to five groups that "allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics," the official Xinhua news agency reported.
China: Uighurs plotted 'holy war'
(Al Jazeera English, 10 Jul 2008)
Five ethnic Uighur men shot and killed in a police raid in China's western Xinjiang province were part of a group plotting a "holy war", Chinese state media has said, less than a month before the Beijing Olympics open. The five were killed in a raid on Tuesday in an apartment in the city of Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital.
Police shoot dead five members of 'Chinese al-Qaeda'
(The Times, 9 Jul 2008)
With less than a month to go before the Olympics open in Beijing, Chinese police have shot dead five members of a Muslim ethnic minority they said were bent on waging holy war inspired by al-Qaeda and setting up an independent state.
Olympics are for Sport, not Politics
(American Public Media: Marketplace, 10 Jul 2008)
While many are tempted to use the Olympic Games as an opportunity to criticize China's human rights record, commentator Ilya Shapiro says it's time to take the politics out of this sporting event.
Four Weeks to Go and Beijing's Unknown Army is in Retreat
(The Guardian, 12 Jul 2008)
Beijing has replaced its notoriously smelly public toilets with modern, cleaner conveniences. To tidy the streets, it has increased the penalty on spitting, launched anti-litter campaigns and hired tens of thousands of migrant workers. But the clean-up will soon be extended to many of those doing the cleaning. On July 20, many of the city's migrant workers - who have done more than anyone to build and beautify the Olympic city - have been ordered to return to their home towns.
US Lawmakers Condemn Crackdown on China's Minority Muslims
(AFP, 12 Jul 2008)
US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them.
Olympic Undesirables Expelled From Beijing
(The Age, 13 Jul 2008)
Ms Pemba, a Tibetan by ethnicity, stepped out of her Beijing flat on Tuesday morning and headed for her English-teaching job at a private school. She was surrounded by about eight security agents and within 15 hours was back in London, banned from returning to China for five years. Beggars, the homeless, prostitutes, activists, and anyone who might challenge Beijing's efforts to present itself as a modern, sophisticated metropolis are being forced to leave, or denied re-entry.
Boycott Beijing Olympics, China Expert Says
(The Wall Street Journal: Market Watch, 16 Jul 2008)
Steven W. Mosher, well-known China expert, calls for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, saying that the games will only serve to legitimize a one-party dictatorship that has a deplorable human rights record.
China Asks Japan for Information
(Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 18 Jul 2008)
Chinese security has asked for information on Japan-based members of spiritual group Falun Gong, ahead of the Beijing Olympics. But the group isn't banned in Japan, and the Japanese government has refused the request.
Chinese Impose Blackout Over New Tibetan Monk Deaths
(The Times, 18 Jul 2008)
Two monks at a monastery in western China were killed in a clash with paramilitary police last weekend, three Tibetan sources have told The Times. The Tibetan sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officers from the paramilitary People’s Armed Police were deployed to halt any violence and shots were fired. One said: “Two monks were killed. These were my relatives.”
China Moves to Quell Violence Before Games
(The Australian, 18 Jul 2008)
Responding to a new wave of unrest ahead of the Olympics, China's communist leadership has told local leaders to address public grievances in order to head off protests that threaten the country's social stability.
Bush Urged to Raise Prisoners' Rights with China
(The Guardian, 16 Jul 2008)
Human rights activists sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday urging him to raise the cases of 23 political prisoners when he attends the Beijing Olympics next month.
China’s Unreality TV
(The New York Times, 22 Jul 2008)
To win the right to host the Games, Beijing promised to expand press freedoms for foreign reporters and implied that opening China to the world would help expand human rights more generally. We will never know whether China’s leaders intended to keep their word. What we do know is that the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and governments around the world should have held China to its word. They have not, and China has read their silence as complicity.
US Lawmakers Consider Olympic Rights Message to China
(AFP, 24 Jul 2008)
A resolution was introduced Wednesday in the US House of Representatives asking China to end human rights abuses and its support for tainted governments in Sudan and Myanmar in line with "Olympic traditions of freedom and openness".
China Plans Olympic Protest Zones
(Al Jazeera English, 23 Jul 2008)
Chinese authorities are planning to establish specially designated areas for protesters at next month's Olympic Games, according to security officials.
China Denies Work Visa for Los Gatos Olympian; Political Motive Suspected
(The Mercury News, 23 Jul 2008)
Kendra Zanotto was set to work as an expert synchronized swimming reporter for the Olympic News Service, an official arm of the Beijing Games. But she says her visa application was refused Monday because of her affiliation with Team Darfur, an athlete-driven group that seeks to call attention to the crisis in western Sudan.
China Rights 'Worsen With Games'
(BBC News, 28 Jul 2008)
The human rights situation in China has deteriorated, not improved, with its hosting of the Olympic Games this year, campaigners Amnesty International say. It documents the use of "re-education through labour", the suppression of rights activists and journalists, and the use of arbitrary imprisonment.
Rice Says China Must Not Use Olympics to Squash Dissent
(The Guardian, 26 Jul 2008)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged China on Saturday not to use security concerns over next month's Olympics as a cover to crush political dissent.
China Dissidents Hope Olympics Not Like Berlin Games
(The Guardian, 28 Jul 2008)
One of China's leading dissidents, Chen Ziming, hopes the Beijing Olympics will be like the Seoul Games in 1988 and lead to political reform and not like the Nazi propaganda-driven Berlin Olympics of 1936.
Rights Issue Looms as Bush Heads to China
(The Washington Post, 28 Jul 2008)
What the president will do or say in Beijing is the subject of considerable debate within the administration, several officials said, but they expressed doubt that Bush would do much to embarrass the Chinese leadership during an event it considers something of a coming-out party for China as a world power. However, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) is urging Bush to emulate President Ronald Reagan, who made a major public address about religious freedom and human rights when he visited the Soviet Union in 1988.
More Pressure on Beijing
(The New York Times, 31 Jul 2008)
President Bush is finally beginning to complain -- gingerly -- about China’s disgraceful wave of pre-Olympics repression.
City's Signs Suggest a House Divided
(Chicago Tribune, 1 Aug 2008)
Two very different messages written on the walls of Kashgar capture why China's regime is watching this distant outpost with particular interest in the final days before the Beijing Olympics, scheduled to start Aug. 8.
Two Chinese Dissidents Back in Taipei from Hong Kong
(Monsters and Critics, 2 Aug 2008)
Two overseas-based Chinese dissidents who flew to Hong Kong Saturday to try to protest China's holding the Beijing Olympic Games were denied entry and deported to Taipei Saturday night, press reports said Sunday.
16 Chinese Police Officers Killed
(The Globe and Mail, 4 Aug 2008)
With the Olympics just four days away, China has been hit with a violent attack that killed 16 police officers in its troubled Muslim region of Xinjiang, one of the bloodiest assaults on Chinese authorities in many years. The attack is likely to escalate tensions that are already running high on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. China has mobilized an anti-terrorism force of 100,000 soldiers and police, along with a battery of surface-to-air missiles, to protect the Olympic Games from terrorist attacks.
China's Iron Hand
(The Arizona Republic, 5 Aug 2008)
Instead of the Olympics serving as a means for China to clean up its human-rights act, it is using the excuse of the Games to clamp down even further. And, instead, to paint on that veneer of excitement and joy.
China Clears Streets for the Olympics
(Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug 2008)
As part of its bid to host the Olympics, China promised to improve its human rights record. Last month, the government announced that it would go so far as to designate space in city parks where protesters could exercise free speech. But such pledges come at the same time as the unprecedented crackdown in the streets. Along with beggars and pickpockets, the petitioners appear to top the list of the personae non gratae whom Beijing wants out before Friday. The petitioners are living in the streets largely because the Chinese government, citing concerns over Olympic security, has in recent weeks closed down thousands of cheap hotels and basement apartments where rooms could be rented for less than $1 a day. The government has also demolished housing in entire neighborhoods where petitioners have lived.
Foreigners Protest for Tibetan Independence in Beijing
(Deutsche Welle, 6 Aug 2008)
Two days ahead of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, China seems to have reneged on its pledge to honor freedom of expression after the arrest of demonstrators and the unexplained revocation of visas.
Clandestine Olympic protests
(BBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
In the world of the Olympic protester, those people who have come to Beijing to voice their complaints about the Chinese government, cloak-and-dagger publicity stunts days before the start of the Games are one way to get their message out.
An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama
(The New York Times, 6 Aug 2008)
When the Olympics open on Friday, the Dalai Lama won’t be there. Each side put out feelers about his attendance and was tantalized by the idea, but in the end the mutual distrust was too great to overcome.
Bush Criticises Beijing Rights Record, Leaves For Games
(RFI, 7 Aug 2008)
US President George Bush has expressed his "concern" over China's human rights record as China declares it is ready to stage one of the greatest Olympics ever.
Flags, Protests and Surprising Restraint
(The Globe and Mail, 7 Aug 2008)
On the eve of the Olympics, the Chinese authorities have become enmeshed in a cloak-and-dagger game with an array of foreign protesters, detaining some activists while failing to block protests by others.
China Revokes Visa of US Olympic medallist and activist
(The Guardian, 6 Aug 2008)
Chinese authorities have abruptly revoked the visa of 2006 winter Olympic gold-medallist and Darfur activist Joey Cheek, prompting a protest by the US government and further marring the start of the Beijing games.
Olympic Message to Some in Beijing Is ‘Please Leave’
(The New York Times, 7 Aug 2008)
Like thousands of others who packed Beijing’s main train station on Thursday, Li Tianchao, an itinerant worker, was prompted to leave Beijing by a lack of work and an unwritten government policy encouraging migrant workers to clear out until the dignitaries and journalists have gone home.
The Flag Man Stands Down
(Time, 9 Aug 2008)
Lopez Lomong, a Sudanese refugee and new U.S. citizen carried the American flag at the Olympic opening ceremony. Asked by the international press to join the critics of China's human rights record, its ties to the Sudan, and its decision to revoke the American Darfur activist and former Olympian Joey Cheek's visa Lomong dodged. "I'm here to inspire other kids who are out there watching these Olympics," he said at one point.
Revolution From Below
(The Globe and Mail, 9 Aug 2008)
While the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics yesterday were a spectacular show the narrative from most of the Western media has been something like this: Back in 2001, China promised to behave and improve its human-rights records, in exchange for hosting the Games, but has broken its promises; there is more repression of Tibetans and other minorities, more jailing of dissidents, more harassment of the foreign press, more pollution, more censorship; in short, China is not democratizing. But there have been advances mainly due to the Chinese people's continuous struggle, often against the mighty control apparatus of an authoritarian state. To have counted on the Beijing Olympics to deliver a fast political miracle inside China, or anything else that the outside world might have wanted, was both unrealistic and shortsighted. We need to ask: What happens to China, to all the problems and challenges it faces at the end of this month when the Games are over? What is the leverage then?
China Designates Special 'Protest Zones'
(The Daily Telegraph, 10 Aug 2008)
For those who want to demonstrate but do not want to risk arrest and deportation, there is another, perfectly legal way to get heard at the Olympics - at three "designated protest zones" around the capital city. They are, however, a far cry from Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. For one, they are tucked away in hard-to reach suburbs, seven miles from the main Olympic stadium. And for another, the rules on exactly who can demonstrate, and what they can demonstrate about, are as strict and complex as any in China's Byzantine bureaucracy. Human rights activists have branded them as worthless "protest pens" and predict they are likely to stay empty for the duration of the Games.
After the Games, Tibet
(The New York Times, 14 Aug 2008)
The Olympics could end up being the second-most-significant event in China this year. The Chinese leadership and the Tibetan government in exile have delicately discussed a possible visit by the Dalai Lama to China, nominally to commemorate the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan Province in May. That would be the first meeting between the Dalai Lama and Chinese leaders in more than 50 years and would give enormous impetus to resolving the Tibet question.
House Churches Barred From Holding Services Over Olympics Period
(Christian Today, 15 Aug 2008)
A number of house church leaders in China have been forced to sign a written agreement declaring that they will not hold services whilst the Olympic Games take place in Beijing.
A Wrong Theme For the Beijing Olympics
(Sudan Tribune, 18 Aug 2008)
"One World, One Dream" as the theme for the Beijing Olympics, though only in words, is as beautiful as the Bird’s Nest Stadium where the ceremony for the world sports was officially opened; but ironically it reflects exactly the opposite of what China portrays in the world. Unless the theme is confined to suit sports only, there is no way one would believe that China could both be a perpetrator of love and peace and at the same time the mentor behind the war and genocide in Darfur. This proved beyond all doubt that China has opened its doors for the world’s Olympics not in beautiful colors but also in forms of an attractive wording to make up a theme that will put a curtain on the face of the world.
The Dark Story Behind China’s Gold Medals
(The Epoch Times, 19 Aug 2008)
Chinese athletes continue to take top honors in the Beijing Olympics, but it isn’t merely the product of talent and training. The Chinese communist regime is a driving force behind the country’s gold medal wins, and evidence reveals that the regime has used its totalitarian rule to divert vast amounts of the nation’s wealth, shown utter disregard for their athletes’ health and have relied heavily on steroid use in order to gain Olympic gold.
Chinese Pensioners Punished After Applying to Protest
(The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug 2008)
Two Chinese pensioners who applied for the right to demonstrate in the "protest pens" at the Beijing Olympics have been sentenced to a one-year term of "Re-education through Labour", a leading Chinese human rights groups has said.
IOC Says Wants to See Beijing Protest Parks Used
(Reuters, 21 Aug 2008)
The International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday it would have liked to see protesters actually use designated protest parks during the Beijing Games. Not a single permit for the 77 protest applications has been issued by Chinese authorities.
China Stages Tibet Opera During Games
(The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug 2008)
An opera written to offer a rose-tinted portrayal of China's relationship with Tibet will run in a large Beijing theatre for three days this week.
Brown Praises Beijing Olympics
(AFP, 23 Aug 2008)
Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday, telling China's leader that the Beijing Olympics had captured the world's imagination, Chinese state media reported. Hu thanked Brown for showing his support for the Beijing Games when he welcomed the Beijing Olympic flame at his residence at 10 Downing Street in April, the report said.
China Keeps Pro-Tibet Websites Blocked
(AFP, 22 Aug 2008)
Pro-Tibet websites remained blocked in the Olympic press centre and elsewhere on Friday, amid reports that Chinese troops had opened fire on protesters in a remote area of southwest China.
Beijing Full of Reminders That Old Ways Still Pock Mark China's New Face
(The Canadian Press, 24 Aug 2008)
To put on the Olympics, China used brute strength and appealed to nationalist sentiment in order to cast a spell that would change itself from beast into beauty. Edicts swept cars off the streets, outlawed spitting, provided scripts on how people should talk to foreigners, and rules about what they should wear. The spell worked not only on its people, but on the world, conjuring up a China that appeared modern, welcoming and eager to please. It couldn't, however, cover up all the ugly pock marks left by a communist regime that is so offensive to the West, but which the Chinese people incredibly just don't seem to mind.
Will the Olympics Boost China Human Rights?
(Business Week, 23 Aug 2008)
Many were hoping a new openness would emerge as the mainland took center stage, but most experts agree the Games won't change much.
Dalai Lama to Lead post-Olympic Global Fast
(Ottowa Citizen, 23 Aug 2008)
The Dalai Lama will lead a global fast after the Beijing Olympics end next week to highlight the "Tibetan cause," the Tibetan government-in-exile said Friday.
China Gives 6 American Protesters 10-Day Detentions
(The New York Times, 23 Aug 2008)
A group of six Americans who were taken into custody on Tuesday as they tried to protest China’s rule in Tibet have been given 10-day detentions, the Chinese police confirmed Friday.
Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
(The New York Times, 21 Aug 2008)
In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote. The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth. But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
Beijing’s Bad Faith Olympics
(The New York Times, 22 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympics still have one more day to run. But the final gold medal — for authoritarian image management — can already be safely awarded to China’s Communist Party leadership.
China's Thin Veil of Compliance
(The Canberra Times, 25 Aug 2008)
Exotic, distant and mysterious no longer. As a result of the Olympics, China has been recognised to have a more complex persona. The international gaze has now been redirected to some of the less agreeable ''externalities'' fuelling the economic miracle. And these externalities are not just problems for people in China, in Tibet and Xinjiang. They are also a problem for the rest of the world.
China Deports 8 American Protesters
(Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug 2008)
Eight Americans jailed for holding peaceful protests were deported Sunday during the Olympics closing ceremony, the U.S. Embassy said. The move comes hours after the U.S. Embassy called for the men's release and expressed disappointment that the Games did not bring more tolerance to the nation.
China Blocks iTunes Over “Songs Of Tibet” Album
(Ebrandz, 25 Aug 2008)
China may be open to the Olympics, but the government closed off access to the popular iTunes Web site in the country, apparently in response to reports that dozens of Olympic athletes were among those who had gone there to download an album promoting freedom for Tibet.
Shiny Olympics Shouldn't Disguise China's Dark Reality
(Turkish Daily News, 1 Sep 2008)
China’s horrible domestic human rights track record, extremely dark and aggressive involvement in Africa and the dodgy backing of all possible dodgy countries of the world remain unshaken
Paralympic Boon to China's Disabled
(Los Angeles Times, 5 Sep 2008)
If the Summer Olympics were a coming-out party for China as a whole, the Paralympic Games will be an even greater event for the country's disabled. In preparation for the 11-day international competition that opens Saturday, Beijing is being retrofitted with ramps for wheelchairs and street crossing signals for the blind. The city also has acquired 2,000 "kneeling buses."
Chinese Protester Freed After Olympics Detention
(AP, 8 Sep 2008)
A Chinese woman detained for a month after protesting about being evicted from her home ahead of the Olympics has been freed, the woman and her son said Monday. Zhang Wei said she was released on Saturday on condition that she keep her cell phone on at all times so police can contact her and order her back to jail if necessary.
Supreme Court’s Global Influence Is Waning
(The New York Times, 18 Sep 2008)
Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War. But now American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to pay attention to the writings of American justices.
Environmental Issues - Local
Measures to improve air quality
(China Daily, 15 Apr 2008)
Work at Beijing construction sites will be suspended in the run-up to, and during, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The suspension - along with a slew of other initiatives - to be effective from July 20 to September 20, aims to ensure better air quality during the Games.
Beijingers see air quality improving
(China Daily, 3 Apr 2008)
An increasing number of Beijing residents are content with the improving air quality of the city, as it is in full swing to stage the upcoming Olympic Games in August.
Beijing strives to improve air quality as Games draw near
(XinHua, 23 Jun 2008)
"Between June 23 and July 19, only half of the 22,800 vehicles used by all-level party organs, governments and public institutions under the Beijing administration will be allowed to use the road," a traffic ban issued by the Beijing Municipal Government stated. The ban was among the latest pre-Olympic drives to ease the capital's traffic congestion, and more importantly, to improve air quality. Other traffic bans include an even-odd system based on license plate numbers that will keep vehicles off the road on alternate days between July 20 and September 20 and a suspension of 70 percent of government motor vehicles during that period of time.
Athletes' cozy home embodies Green Olympics
(China Daily, 13 Jun 2008)
Energy critics will have little to complain about at the Olympic Village, thanks to Beijing's extensive efforts to offer a comfortable and environmentally friendly home for the athletes.
Qingdao vows to clean algae invading Olympic venues
(XinHua, 30 Jun 2008)
Qingdao, which will host the Olympic sailing competitions in August, will spend at most half a month to clean the algae invading, local government announced at a news conference on Sunday.
DIY crash procedure cuts jams in Beijing
(China Daily, 2 Jul 2008)
Of the many rules and regulations introduced by the Beijing government to ease the city's traffic problems, one of the simplest seems to be having the most effect: allowing car drivers to handle their own minor bumps.
Traffic, air quality emphasized during Olympics
(XinHua, 13 Jun 2008)
China's Vice President Xi Jinping Thursday urged guaranteeing smooth traffic, sound air quality and sound food safety during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Quake cannot sink Olympic preparations: BOCOG
(China Daily, 16 May 2008)
The massive jolt in southwest China that feared to take more than 50,000 lives will not affect either the safety or the preparations of the Beijing Games, said a senior official with the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG).
ISAF gives Qingdao high praise
(China Daily, 13 May 2008)
The Olympic Sailing Center received top marks from the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) and International Federation for Disabled Sailing (IFDS) on May 11 at an inspection tour during the 2008 IFDS Qingdao International Regatta.
Food safety at Games top priority: Quality chief
(China Daily, 19 Apr 2008)
Olympic food suppliers should tighten their management procedures to ensure products are not sabotaged before or during the Games, the country's top quality control official said on Friday. Li Changjiang, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), said firms should also keep video records of their monitoring procedures for use in the event of any tampering.
Olympics sailing venue setting up second barrier against algae
(Xinhua, 9 Jul 2008)
Workers are racing against the time to build the second barrier to prevent algae from invading the Olympic sailing venue off the coast of Qingdao city in east China's Shandong Province.
People's Daily Hails One-month Countdown to Beijing Olympics
(Xinhua, 8 Jul 2008)
The People's Daily editorial, headlined "Beijing embraces the world," says China can still host a "high-level Olympic Games with characteristics" after the devastating earthquake that jolted southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12. It said the massive disaster is a major test for China and the country passed it splendidly. "The quake won't batter the determination of 1.3 billion people to host a successful Olympics, nor it will batter the expectation of the Chinese nation to realize the century-old dream," it said.
IOC Official Surprised at Beijing's Air Quality Improvement
(Xinhua, 23 Jul 2008)
The air quality in Beijing has improved dramatically in recent days thanks to the effective temporary measures, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) official said on Wednesday.
Plastic Bottles Discarded in Olympic Venues to be Recycled
(Xinhua, 24 Jul 2008)
All plastic bottles discarded at each Olympic venue will be collected and recycled to maintain the cleanness in the stadium, according to a meeting for Olympic waste recycling held here on Wednesday. According to the meeting, Coca Cola, World's largest soft drink maker, together with the Beijing-based Income Resources Recovery Company, will jointly do the waste collection work.
China May Expand Industry, Traffic Control for Cleaner Air During Olympics
(Xinhua, 31 Jul 2008)
Beijing and the neighboring areas may impose stricter measures to curb industrial and vehicle emissions in case of serious air pollution during the Olympics, according to China's environmental watchdog.
IOC: Beijing delivers on Environmental Promises
(Xinhua, 6 Aug 2008)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) lauded Beijing Wednesday for its efforts in environmental protection since it was awarded the right to host 2008 Games. Chairman of the IOC's environmental commission, Pal Schmitt, told the 120th IOC session that China's rapid economic growth has put a strain on the environment, but the city has done its best to tackle pollution.
Report: China Unleashes Clean Revolution
(Xinhua
, 1 Aug 2008)
A report published on Friday by the Climate Group hails China as the world's leading renewable energy producer, overtaking more developed economies in exploiting valuable economic opportunities, creating green-collar jobs and leading development of critical low carbon technologies.
Go for Gold in Olympic Weather Service
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
While people were enjoying the fireworks show in the evening, meteorologists were firing rockets to disperse threatening rainy clouds coming from the southwest. In order to keep the "Bird's Nest" dry, a total of 1,104 rockets were launched.
"Environmental Champions" Film Documentary Premieres in Olympic Green
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
A new documentary film on the personal stories and achievements of seven "environmental champion" torchbearers selected by Coca-Cola for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay made its debut in the Olympic Green here on Wednesday.
Olympic Water Self Sufficient, No Deep Aquifer Water Involved
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
A Ministry of Water Resources official said on Wednesday that Beijing could ensure a sufficient supply of water for the Olympic Games, with all water coming from the capital itself, no deep underground water being involved. Vice Minister of Water Resources Hu Siyi told a news conference that the hosting of the Games did not pose any threat to Beijing's supply of water. "There is no Olympic water diverted from the neighboring Hebei Province, and the valuable deep underground water is not used."
Environmental Issues - International
Prof to study industrial shutdown for Olympics
(Chicago Tribune, 7 Jul 2008)
A Valparaiso University professor plans to spend several weeks in Japan this summer to study whether China's efforts to clear Beijing's air for the Olympics has any impact on air quality in the island nation.
China dismayed at Australia's smog 'boycott'
(The Age, 17 Jun 2008)
Olympic authorities in China have expressed dismay at a decision by Australia to keep its entire track and field team away from the Games opening ceremony due to concerns about exposure to dirty Beijing air.
Olympics in China hits Indian pesticide units
(Business Line (The Hindu) , 7 Jun 2008)
The Beijing Olympics has a direct impact on the spiraling prices of pesticides that almost went up by 60-70 per cent in the last few months. China, a major exporter of certain basic chemicals that go into a number of pesticides and fungicides, has shut down over 1,800 chemical manufacturing units ahead of the Olympics scheduled for August 2008.
Cloud over Beijing
(The Times (South Africa), 8 Jun 2008)
About half the South African Olympic team will suffer from a variety of allergies and respiratory problems at the Beijing Games in August, according to a Cape Town sports scientist. Beijing has been criticized for the quality of it's air, which at times has pollution levels nearly five times above the World Health Organization's safety standards.
Beijing Announces Traffic Plan for Olympics
(The New York Times, 21 Jun 2008)
Beijing officials on Friday announced temporary measures to unsnarl the city’s traffic and reduce its chronic and sometimes choking air pollution. It will restrict owners of private cars to driving on alternate days, depending on whether the last number of their license plate is even or odd, officials said at a news conference. Operating hours for public transportation will be extended during the two-month period, the officials said.
Chinese Algae Threatens Olympic Sailing
(The New York Times, 1 Jul 2008)
With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algal bloom choking the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.
China to shut factories ahead of Olympics-sources
(The Guardian, 5 Jul 2008)
Authorities in Tangshan, an industrial city in Hebei province north of Beijing, have ordered 267 firms to shut down operations by July 8 to improve air quality ahead of the Olympics, government and industry sources said on Friday. The firms include 66 steel makers, as well as coke plants, cement firms and small power generators, a government official in Tangshan said.
China: An Olympic Loss for Industry
(Business Week, 4 Jul 2008)
Strict limits on production during the Games will be felt across the Mainland—and by consumers abroad. While many companies say the extent of the restrictions isn't yet clear, others have been given explicit instructions to shut down or curtail output. For many companies, the limits on traffic will be the most onerous.
Is China ready for the Olympics?
(BBC News, 6 Jul 2008)
In the swish surroundings of the former US embassy in Beijing, the medals for this summer's Olympic Games were recently unveiled...But while venues and transport facilities seem ready, there are doubts about some other Olympic plans - not least as regards Beijing's poor air quality.
Two Concerns for Olympics: Air and Access
(The New York Times, 9 Jul 2008)
With a month remaining before the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday praised the city’s preparations but also cited two "open issues" that remain: whether the city can deliver good air quality and fulfill promises to allow television networks to broadcast from non-Olympic sites.
Beijing faces Olympic challenges
(BBC, 8 Jul 2008)
With a month to go before the Beijing Olympics, China remains plagued by a number of problems including critical human rights reports and pollution.
Four Weeks to Go and Beijing's Unknown Army is in Retreat
(The Guardian, 12 Jul 2008)
Beijing has replaced its notoriously smelly public toilets with modern, cleaner conveniences. To tidy the streets, it has increased the penalty on spitting, launched anti-litter campaigns and hired tens of thousands of migrant workers. But the clean-up will soon be extended to many of those doing the cleaning. On July 20, many of the city's migrant workers - who have done more than anyone to build and beautify the Olympic city - have been ordered to return to their home towns.
Olympics Suck Up China's Already Scarce Water
(San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Jul 2008)
Changgucheng farmers were never told that the reservoir is one of four in the province tapped to meet the capital's demand for water leading up to and during the Olympic Games, which begin in August. The Games are expected to increase Beijing's water consumption by at least 5 percent, or 162,000 acre-feet, according to a recent report by Probe International, a Canadian environmental group. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons.
An Olympic Smokescreen: Why We Need to Get Over Air Pollution at Beijing's Games
(Huffington Post, 13 Jul 2008)
Clear blue skies and traffic-free streets won't necessarily be good for China. On an image level, such cleanliness may only smack of Potemkin-village fakery and serve to highlight the government's authoritarian -- and patchwork -- system of control.
Olympic Travellers Advised to Beware of Dogs
(Calgary Herald, 12 Jul 2008)
If you're heading to the Beijing Olympics, don't worry too much about catching an exotic disease but be careful about getting bronchitis and being bitten by dogs, researchers said. After examining surveillance data collected from travel and tropical-medicine clinics worldwide they found that dog bites, respiratory infections and diarrhea have been some of the biggest health threats to travelers to China in the past 10 years.
Beijing Orders Pollution to Vanish
(Time, 15 Jul 2008)
Experts familiar with the city's plans for short-term pollution controls say Beijing's air should vastly improve in the final run-up to the Games. That will be good news for the country's reputation and a successful event. However, the solution is only a quick fix; once the controls are lifted, Beijing will most likely return to its smoggy norm.
China Opens New Subway Lines for Olympics
(Business Standard, 19 Jul 2008)
Beijing today opened three new subway lines in a bid to reduce traffic on the city's streets and improve air quality ahead of the Olympics.
Olympic Athletes Wearing Masks Could Cause China to Lose Face
(The Wall Stree Journal, 21 Jul 2008)
Chinese officials insist the notorious Beijing air will be cleaner by August, making face masks unnecessary. If athletes deploy the masks, they risk insulting the hosts. At the moment, there is no stated policy on mask-wearing at the opening ceremony or during competition. Olympic officials believe it's up to the international federation of each sport to determine whether to allow masks during events.
Beijing Freshens Up for the Olympics
(United Press International (UPI), 22 Jul 2008)
Beijing residents are enjoying rare blue skies since Sunday, when regulations designed to clear the air ahead of the Olympic Games went into effect.
Beijing Weighs Added Pollution Plans for Olympics
(The New York Times, 30 Jul 2008)
Less than two weeks before the Olympics, Beijing’s skies are so murky and polluted that the authorities are considering emergency measures during the Games beyond the traffic restrictions and factory shutdowns that, so far, have failed to clear the air, state media reported on Monday.
Beijing Losing Battle Against Olympic Smog
(The Independent, 29 Jul 2008)
With 10 days to go until the Beijing Olympics opens, the smog simply refuses to lift and the Games organisers are preparing emergency measures to clear the air ahead of the big day.
Bad Air Clouds Upcoming Beijing Games, Raises Concerns for Athletes
(ABC News (KTKA, America), 29 Jul 2008)
[Video] The thick cloud shrouding Beijing is air pollution that is three times the recommended level. When athletes breathe in polluted air, the lungs start to swell, and the airways become constricted, making it difficult to breathe. Officials are now looking into a clean-air emergency plan that may involve more traffic restrictions in a last-ditch effort to deliver the green Olympics China promised.
Olympic Pollution Controls Cost Chinese Industry
(Forbes, 29 Jul 2008)
Factory shutdowns and other industrial restrictions intended to help reduce Beijing's eye-searing smog for the Olympics are making business more complicated - and costly - for Chinese providers of steel, pharmaceuticals and other goods and services.
Green Lessons Of The Games
(The Straights Times, 31 Jul 2008)
Billing the Games as the Green Olympics, China will have to deliver on the air pollution score as convincingly as it is doing on the security front with robust and visible measures against terrorist threats. It will have to match the political and public relation skills with which it has defended its Tibet and human rights records.
Beijing Olympics: China to Celebrate Week of 'Fresh Air'
(The Daily Telegraph, 2 Aug 2008)
China's Olympic organisers are hoping to celebrate a week of "clean" skies tomorrow after recording another day when Beijing's notoriously poor air quality was officially judged good enough for the Games.
Chinese Try to Sniff Out Pollution Before Games
(CTV (Canada), 2 Aug 2008)
China has promised to meet World Health Organization standards for the Games, but in recent weeks, pollution levels have at times been about double the benchmark Chinese officials had hoped to achieve. So, Chinese officials have added a human touch to their anti-pollution efforts. They're also employing human sniffers, who have been deployed to areas around Olympic sites to find foul air.
Polluted, Polite, With a Chance of Rain
(The New York Times, 5 Aug 2008)
China is not the first to give man-made rain a try. Many scientists note that there is no proof that rain management works as advertised. In 2003, a report by the National Academies of Sciences said that despite ongoing efforts to seed clouds in several countries and American states, there was no reliable evidence that the techniques generated more rain than the clouds would have disgorged anyway.
Parched Beijing Bilks Rural Water Supply
(NBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
[Video]
Olympic Village Wins Award for 'Green' Design
(NPR, 13 Aug 2008)
The sprawling Beijing Olympic Village won its own gold medal on Wednesday for going green. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented Chinese officials with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold award during a short ceremony, saying the 160-acre Olympic Village could serve as a future prototype for energy efficiency and environmentally friendly design.
Culture - Local
Dragon boat racers send good wishes to Beijing Olympics
(XinHua, 15 Jun 2008)
Pham Van Hung, captain for Vietnamese dragon boat team, said: "It's my third visit to China. Chinese people are very kind and easy-going. I like this country very much. Sports play an very important role in relationships between countries. Hosting the 2008 Olympic games in China, the most populous country in the world, can make the whole world know China much better. It must be an unprecedented event.
"Olympic pandas" kick off new life in Beijing
(China Daily, 5 Jun 2008)
Eight "Olympic pandas" made their debut at the Beijing Zoo and instantly aroused visitors' great affection. The pandas were nominated by Internet users to meet visitors in the run up to the Olympic games. Since their natural habitat was devastated by the May 12 earthquake, they were flown to Beijing via Chengdu on May 24 ahead of schedule.
Beijing organizers sanction chant for Olympic fans
(China Daily, 6 Jun 2008)
Beijing organizers are promoting an officially sanctioned chanting routine for Chinese spectators at August's Olympics, state media said on Thursday. Possible lack of sporting etiquette has been a concern for city authorities during preparations for the Games and a series of educational programs have been instituted.
Creating a Chinese brand
(China Daily, 27 Jun 2008)
Xiushui Street or Silk Market, is a must-go shopping destination for foreign tourists in Beijing. And it is in the process to shaking off an image of paradise for counterfeit brand products, as China strengthens its efforts to better protect intellectual property rights.
Guru tightlipped about 'winking panda'
(China Daily, 2 Jul 2008)
China's record-breaking social and economic changes over the past 20 years will become one of the major themes of the Olympic opening ceremony, according to one of the key members of the team.
Games to make the world 'better understand' China
(XinHua, 18 Jun 2008)
The Olympic Games will help Beijing become a world-class city and reduce foreigners' misconceptions about China, Gerhard Heiberg, chairman of the International Olympic Committee Marketing Commission, said here Tuesday.
Qingdao making Olympic cultural effort
(China Daily, 6 Jun 2008)
During the Olympic sailing competitions in Qingdao, athletes and tourists from home and abroad will enjoy local cultural activities and feel the ardent Olympic atmosphere. Jiang said a range of Olympic-themed artistic works have been produced including symphonies, songs, dances, dramas and movies. Qingdao also places importance on international cultural exchanges.
Foreign exchange
(China Daily, 16 May 2008)
A few hundred Olympic volunteers got brushed up this week on the do's and don'ts of how to serve the Beijing Games this summer. Urban volunteers to man posts outside Olympic venues during the Games received a two-day training course in the Chinese capital. They will offer first aid help as well as interpretation and information consulting services.
Beijing provides platform for global artists during Games
(China Daily, 13 May 2008)
Not only will Beijing become a sports arena during the August Games, but also host over 100 overseas performances and about 60 art exhibitions from May 23 until the end of September. The artistic forms on show during the period include opera, ballet, modern dance, folk dance, folk music, symphonies and evening galas. Audiences are expected to total 2 million.
First Full Dress Rehearsal of Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony Held in Secret
(Xinhua, 11 Jul 2008)
The first full dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games was held in secret at the National Stadium on Thursday night. Tight security was deployed outside the stadium to keep the program of the three-and-a-half hour opening ceremony confidential. Three cordon fences circled the stadium, and armed police only unlocked the gates for vehicles with special passes, according to the TV footage.
In Changing Face of Beijing, a Look at the New China
(The New York Times, 14 Jul 2008)
Critics have incessantly described Beijing's high-profile architectural projects as bullish expressions of the nation’s budding global primacy. Yet these buildings are not simply blunt expressions of power. Like the great monuments of 16th-century Rome or 19th-century Paris, China’s new architecture exudes an aura that has as much to do with intellectual ferment as economic clout.At times terrifying in their aggressive scale, these buildings reflect the country’s effort to give shape to an emerging national identity.
Olympics: China's 'Madman' Gives Life -- And Body -- to Games
(Macau Daily Times, 13 Jul 2008)
Sun Dingguo rewarded himself with his 36th Olympic-themed tattoo after completing a 10-month journey across China, pedaling his rickshaw for the glory of the Beijing Games.
Mini China Welcomes You!
(Xinhua, 16 Jul 2008)
The Chinese Ethnic Culture Park has been a labor of love and precisely re-creates life in all 56 of China's ethnic groups.
Suits Cut From Cloth of Social Fabric
(China Daily, 17 Jul 2008)
Beijing designer Wang Li is proud this summer's Chinese Olympic medalists accept their awards clad in outfits she designed. Wang's suits fuse the traditional Chinese colors of red and yellow with imagery of the national flag and the "auspicious clouds" that adorn the Olympic relay torch.
UN Chief Full of Praise for Beijing
(China Daily, 23 Jul 2008)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he was impressed by the "spectacular" Olympic facilities he saw last month during his visit to Beijing.
Travel Agencies: China Domestic Olympic Travel Falls Lower than Expectations
(Xinhua, 16 Jul 2008)
Less than one month from the Beijing Olympic Games, some of China's travel agencies said they had overestimated the number of domestic travelers for the sporting spectacular to the host city.
One Million Cheap Olympic Tickets Allocated to Chinese Students
(Xinhua, 27 Jul 2008)
Following the practice of previous Olympics, China has set aside about 1 million Olympic tickets, priced at 5 yuan (73 U.S. cents) and 10 yuan, for primary and secondary school students nationwide. The tickets are stamped 'Olympic education program tickets.' "Tickets will be distributed to students through provincial education departments to ensure students from all over China will have the opportunity to join the Beijing Games," said Gao Hong, vice director with the Basic Education Department of the Education Ministry
S. Korean Minister Expects "Unusual and Wonderful" Beijing Olympics
(Xinhua, 27 Jul 2008)
"The whole world is witnessing Chinese efforts to host a successful Olympics. I believe the Beijing Olympics will be an unusual and wonderful event for our athletes," Yoo In-chon, minister of South Korea's Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry, told Xinhua.
Chinese Gymnasts Old Enough for Olympics
(Xinhua, 28 Jul 2008)
A Chinese official said on Monday the Chinese Olympic gymnasts are old enough for the Beijing Games. Zhang Peiwen, spokesman of the Chinese Gymnastics Association, said they registered the Olympians' ages according to their ID cards or other legal certificates.
Beijing Sets High Standard in Hosting Olympics, Says Famed U.S. Businessman
(Xinhua, 1 Aug 2008)
China has set an example too high for future Olympic hosting countries to follow, said John W. Allen, chairman and CEO of the U.S. Greater China Corporation (GCC).
With Olympics Near, it's Time to Share Dream and Enjoy
(Xinhua, 6 Aug 2008)
For all athletes, amateur or professional, to compete at the Games is their lifelong dream. To some athletes, like the four Iraqis who almost lost their chance to take part in the Beijing Games, realizing the dream needs more than hard training and good records.
Olympic Village: Garden-like, Convenient
(Xinhua, 6 Aug 2008)
[Photo Essay]
China to Provide Cultural Feast During Olympic Games
(Xinhua, 28 Jul 2008)
he Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) will provide a variety of unique cultural activities during the coming sports gala in August, says a senior BOCOG official.
Olympic Park to Showcase Intangible Heritage
(Xinhua, 28 Jul 2008)
Thirty special exhibits that showcase China's intangible cultural heritage will be open to many visitors free from Aug.9-Sept.17, during the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, local media reported on Monday. The "Xiangyun Huts" will be located within the huge Olympic Park. These exhibits, built by 30 provinces and regions, display aspects of the Chinese intangible cultural heritage and traditional ethnic and folk customs and culture.
Chinese Businesses Look to Olympic Boost
(Xinhua, 4 Aug 2008)
Refusing to be overshadowed by international big names of Adidas and Coca Cola, Chinese sponsors of the Games are seeking to draw public attention from buses, subway trains, neon lights and right there in the Olympic venues.
Are We Ready for Beijing?
(China Daily, 2 Aug 2008)
Interview with American anthropologist, Susan Brownell, a US Fulbright Research Scholar who specializes in Chinese sports. A former nationally ranked track and field athlete, Brownell is doing research on the Chinese Olympics Games at Beijing Sports University. The interview seeks to answer the question "What do foreigners think of these Olympic Games?"
Winning or Losing, the Hosts are Always Cheering
(Xinhua, 12 Aug 2008)
Whether or not the Chinese athletes are competing, fans of the host country have transcended their national sentiments to take delight in others' victories, by shouting "go, go" and applauding with their cheerleaders to pep up international players.
Games Organizers Say Girl's Vocal Lip-synched to Ensure "Best Voice, Best Performer"
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
Beijing Olympic Games organizers said here on Wednesday that they had lip-synched the girl's singing at last Friday's Games opening ceremony to ensure the "best voice and the best performer." "There were a number of candidates to sing the song and the artistic directors just picked the best voice and the best performer," said Sun Weide, an official with the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games.
Gold is Good, but More Cheers for Sportsmanship
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
The Chinese public, while savoring the delight of one Olympic victory after another on the home soil, have also cast their eyes on the "losing heroes," sharing their pains, admiring their efforts and looking forward to their future success. "Winners or losers, all Olympians are heroes." This has become a catchphrase for the Chinese media and the home audience, tens of millions in number, over these days.
Lip-synch Furore Surprises Director
(South China Morning Post, 14 Aug 2008)
The music director of Friday's opening ceremony for the Olympics says he's surprised by the outcry over his revelation that producers had arranged for a girl to lip-synch a song sung by another child because she was supposedly unattractive.
Liu Xiang is a Fighter, Said Athletics Chief
(Xinhua, 18 Aug 2008)
Chinese athletics chief hailed Liu Xiang as a fighter after the defending champion pulled out of the Olympic 110m hurdles first round because of the tendon injury to the right foot on Monday morning.
Tumbles No Damage to Veteran Cheng's Shinning Image
(Xinhua, 17 Aug 2008)
Chinese veteran Cheng Fei remained a heroine in the eyes of spectators and her contenders on Sunday, although she failed to realize China's long-held dream to claim Olympic titles in women's vault and floor exercises.
Beijing Olympics Highlight Chinese Values
(Xinhua, 26 Aug 2008)
From a cultural perspective, one outstanding achievement of the Beijing Olympics is that it highlighted the basic values of the Chinese people and demonstrated China's moral power, a leading Chinese-American philosopher said.
French Parliamentarian Says World Knows China Better Through Olympics
(Xinhua, 30 Aug 2008)
"The Beijing Olympic Games was a window through which people around the world gained a better understanding about China," said Bernard Debre, a member of the French National Assembly, on Friday.
State Councilor Urges Adding Olympic Spirits to Chinese Education
(Xinhua, 2 Sep 2008)
State Councilor Liu Yandong has urged that the spirits of the Olympics and fighting disasters such as the Sichuan earthquake be added to the orientation program for students in the new semester.
China Becoming Great Power in World Sports, Says Slovak President
(Xinhua, 2 Sep 2008)
China has made huge progress and it is becoming a great power in world sports," Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic said in a written interview to Xinhua in his country's capital of Bratislava on Monday. The president, who has just returned from the Beijing Olympics, hailed the achievements of Chinese athletes at the Games, referring to the Chinese Olympics delegation as a world-level team.
Paralympic Athletes Able to Match Olympic Greats
(Xinhua, 10 Sep 2008)
In the Athens Olympics in 2004, Phelps came up one short of matching Mark Spitz's 1972 gold medal haul, while Popovich went 7-for-7 in five individual events and two relays in the ensuing Paralympics.
Chinese Power - Local
China pledges safe rail transport during Olympics
(XinHua, 16 Jun 2008)
China's rail systems must place priority on providing safe and sound transport during the coming Olympic Games, boosting passenger flow this summer, the Ministry of Railways said Monday.
China to ban air-freighting of dangerous goods during Olympics
(XinHua, 18 Jun 2008)
China will ban the air-freighting of dangerous goods to Olympic host cities during the Games, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. Airlines will be prohibited from carrying explosives for civil use, guns and ammunition to the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao and Qingdao from July 1 to Sep. 30,the administration said in a statement on its website.
Chinese swimmer gets lifelong ban for doping
(China Daily, 28 Jun 2008)
China's top swimmer, Ouyang Kunpeng, has been banned from competition for life after testing positive for steroids, a top Chinese swimming official said on Friday with only 43 days to go before the Beijing Olympics.
Hong Kong holds health drill to test Olympic preparedness
(XinHua, 7 Jun 2008)
Health authorities in Hong Kong held an inter-departmental exercise simulating a suspected food poisoning incident involving 24 sportsmen at the Olympic Village on Friday to test the city's Olympic preparedness.
Why Washington plays 'Tibet Roulette' with China
(China Daily, 16 Apr 2008)
Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk geopolitical game with Beijing's by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.
World leaders, scholars say any attempt to sabotage Olympics doomed to fail
(XinHua, 17 Apr 2008)
Government leaders and scholars around the world have voiced their support for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, condemning deeds of disrupting the Olympic torch relay and saying the sabotage attempts are doomed to fail.
China to intensify scrutiny over drugs during Olympics
(XinHua, 23 Jun 2008)
China will inspect all inbound cargoes and parcels during the 2008 Olympics as part of its anti-drug effort for the event, Liu Guangping, director of the general office of the General Administration of Customs, said on Monday.
UN chief wishes Beijing Olympics "most successful"
(XinHua, 29 Jun 2008)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed his confidence that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will be the most successful ever in history. "I am quite confident that the Chinese government and people will make this most successful ever Olympic Games in history," Ban said.
Olympic doctors stand ready
(China Daily, 25 Jun 2008)
Dr Peng Mingqiang is deputy-director of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, the only medical institution designated to receive athletes, coaches and sports experts during the Olympic Games. He talks to Guan Xiaomeng of chinadaily.com.cn about how his staff has been preparing for medical services during the Games.
Challenges remain as Olympics approach
(XinHua, 19 Jun 2008)
As the clock ticks towards the Olympic Games, Beijing still faces awesome challenges as host city. "The situation is pressing, and the tasks are daunting," said Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), when visiting non-competition venues on Monday.
Anti-terror ace to ensure safe Games
(China Daily, 17 Jun 2008)
An anti-terrorism expert has been appointed executive vice-minister of public security amid intensified efforts to ensure a trouble-free Olympic Games. The ministry's website on Sunday night posted news of the appointment of Yang Huanning, former member of the standing committee of the Heilongjiang provincial Party committee and secretary of the province's political and law committee.
Satellite launched for Olympic TV broadcast
(China Daily, 9 Jun 2008)
China launched a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-9, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern Sichuan Province at 8:15 p.m. (Beijing Time) Monday. Audiences would be able to watch live broadcasts of Olympic events via the satellite. The quality and coverage of the country's television and broadcasting services were to be increased, and people in remote regions of China would receive clear television programs.
IOC in awe of Beijing Games preparations
(China Daily, 5 Jun 2008)
The International Olympic Committee praised Beijing Games organisers on Wednesday for setting the scene for what promised to be a successful Games. Hein Verbruggen, the IOC's chief inspector for the Beijing Games said all the venues were spectacular and Beijing would be a hard act to follow for London, which will stage the 2012 Olympics.
China issues legal guide for foreigners
(China Daily, 2 Jun 2008)
China on Monday released a legal guide for foreigners about a wide range of issues such as their entry, exit, tourism and accommodation in the country.
Games won't be financial burden to Beijing
(China Daily, 4 Jun 2008)
Despite being billed as the costliest Games ever, the Beijing Olympics won't be a financial millstone around the neck of the Beijing municipal government in the years to come, said Standard & Poor's Ratings Services in a report released here on Tuesday.
Visa procedures not made difficult - Official
(China Daily, 30 May 2008)
The Foreign Ministry has dismissed news reports and rumors claiming the country had stopped issuing multiple-entry visas and had tightened visa restrictions. A senior official of the ministry's consular department called such reports "unfounded", adding that Chinese diplomatic missions have been issuing multiple-entry visas to foreigners who meet the requirements.
Beijing well prepared for Olympic medical
(XinHua, 29 May 2008)
Beijing has set up an emergency response command system to cope with any outbreak of infectious diseases during this summer's Olympic Games, an official said on Wednesday. Jin Dapeng, chief of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee's medical support group, told a press conference that the city's 160,000 medical workers are all being trained to handle medical emergencies -- including bio-terrorist attacks.
Anti-terrorist team preparing for Games
(XinHua, 27 May 2008)
An anti-terrorist special team consisting of engineers and experts will shoulder the security work for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, according to the General Staff Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
Interpol will help ensure safe Games
(China Daily, 26 Apr 2008)
The International Criminal Police Organization, better known as Interpol, will provide China with comprehensive intelligence and information to help ensure a safe Olympics in Beijing, its secretary-general said on Friday.
Closure of factories will not hit economy
(China Daily, 18 Apr 2008)
Beijing's economic growth this year will not be significantly affected by its plans to temporarily shut down factories, reduce their production, and limit the use of cars to improve air quality during the Olympic Games, an official said Thursday.
Getting creative with power plays
(The Standard, 7 Jul 2008)
Power has many forms. Even the most powerful are sometimes forced to be creative with the uses of their influence and reach, and cannot simply ram though their intentions. For Beijing, the mutability of its power relationships is an enduring truth and is informing many of its more pressing political issues.
A sample, not a sermon
(The China Post, 10 Jul 2008)
Taiwan is a genuine democracy with freedom of speech and assembly. Any group with a grievance or cause can peacefully protest, agitate or advocate their position. But history shows that the "soft power" of persuasion is often more effective than "in-your-face" confrontation.
People's Daily Hails One-month Countdown to Beijing Olympics
(Xinhua, 8 Jul 2008)
The People's Daily editorial, headlined "Beijing embraces the world," says China can still host a "high-level Olympic Games with characteristics" after the devastating earthquake that jolted southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12. It said the massive disaster is a major test for China and the country passed it splendidly. "The quake won't batter the determination of 1.3 billion people to host a successful Olympics, nor it will batter the expectation of the Chinese nation to realize the century-old dream," it said.
Chinese Vice President Stresses Safety for Olympic Venues Outside Beijing
(Xinhua, 16 Jul 2008)
Vice President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that Olympic venues outside Beijing should give priority to safety and he expected audiences to watch the Games with good manners.
Network May be Busy but Not Paralysed During Olympics
(Xinhua, 17 Jul 2008)
Beijing's telecom network may be busy during the coming Olympic Games but will not be paralyzed, said a senior Chinese telecom official here Thursday. When asked whether the mobile phone network would work if the 100,000 audience at the Bird's Nest made phone calls at the same time during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Chinese Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xi Guohua admitted at a press conference that the network was likely to go through temporary congestion.
China Muscles in on Steroid Industry
(CCTV, 29 Jul 2008)
THE Chinese Government has carried out a nationwide "dragnet" of the producers and distributors of anabolic steroids and peptide hormones to clean up potential suppliers of banned drugs to athletes before the Beijing Games.
Chinese Banks Provide Efficient Financial Services for Olympics
(CCTV, 29 Jul 2008)
China's major banks say big investments have been made to provide efficient financial services during the Olympic Games. With an extra half million people expected in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, China's banking industry has worked to give the city's guests easy access to cash.
Beijing Sets High Standard in Hosting Olympics, Says Famed U.S. Businessman
(Xinhua, 1 Aug 2008)
China has set an example too high for future Olympic hosting countries to follow, said John W. Allen, chairman and CEO of the U.S. Greater China Corporation (GCC).
Olympic Sailing Venue Intensifies Port Surveilance
(Xinhua, 6 Aug 2008)
Ships visiting or leaving the port of Qingdao, venue of the Olympic sailing event in east China, were under strict safety checks, an official said here Wednesday.
Olympic Games are Crown on China's Development
(Xinhua, 6 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympic Games are "a kind of crown" on the achievement China has made in the past decades, Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme told Xinhua Tuesday.
Chinese Businesses Look to Olympic Boost
(Xinhua, 4 Aug 2008)
Refusing to be overshadowed by international big names of Adidas and Coca Cola, Chinese sponsors of the Games are seeking to draw public attention from buses, subway trains, neon lights and right there in the Olympic venues.
4 Foreign Nationals Ordered to Leave China
(China Daily (Xinhua), 6 Aug 2008)
Two Americans and two British nationals have been ordered to leave China "within a prescribed time limit" after displaying "Free Tibet" banners near an Olympic venue in Beijing on Wednesday, local police said. "They disrupted public order and violated Chinese laws. Their period of stay in the country will hereby be cut short according to the Law of the People's Republic of China on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens," the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.
Top Guards for Elite Visitors During Games
(China Daily, 6 Aug 2008)
They are proficient in hand-to-hand combat, firefighting, tactical maneuvers and first aid. They speak English and are familiar with international etiquette. But their names and assigned tasks are kept confidential. Posted at the Olympic village, they are members of a 31-strong special security team from Sichuan province. Their mission: guarantee the safety of international dignitaries and VIP guests during the Beijing Olympics.
'Grandma Vigilantes' on High Alert
(China Daily, 5 Aug 2008)
For decades, Beijing has been known to have an army of neighborhood security volunteers, nicknamed "grandma vigilantes". They are often seen with red armbands in residential areas. These volunteers were in place even before the Olympic Games and have become one part of Beijing's Olympic security efforts.
The Olympics as a Milestone of Growth
(China Daily, 13 Aug 2008)
Hosting of the Olympics Games by China will not bring a boost to the country's economy as a large power, whether in terms of direct investment or indirect promotion, but it will prove to be a milestone of the country's economic growth and development.
Beijing Starts Security Checks at Parks After Fatal Stabbing
(Xinhua, 13 Aug 2008)
Police started security checks at park gates in the capital region on Wednesday in a bid to keep knives and other dangerous items out of these areas, in the wake of the fatal stabbing of a U.S. tourist.
Vietnamese Media: Olympics, China Most Successful
(Xinhua, 25 Aug 2008)
Host China has not only topped the medal table for the first time, but also received numerous praises for the most successful games in the history, local newspaper Youth reported Monday.
Beijing Olympics Also Grand for China's Diplomacy
(Xinhua, 25 Aug 2008)
On the sidelines of the smooth sports events, the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government held more than 100 meetings with leaders from other countries, thanking them for their support for the Games and exchanging views on international and regional issues with common concern.
China Becoming Great Power in World Sports, Says Slovak President
(Xinhua, 2 Sep 2008)
China has made huge progress and it is becoming a great power in world sports," Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic said in a written interview to Xinhua in his country's capital of Bratislava on Monday. The president, who has just returned from the Beijing Olympics, hailed the achievements of Chinese athletes at the Games, referring to the Chinese Olympics delegation as a world-level team.
Time for China to Turn Attention to Science, Technology
(Xinhua, 3 Sep 2008)
Over the past years, China has made great headway both in sports and science. It has through these past Olympic Games consolidated the country's status in sports. In the realm of science, China, however, has not established an international status proportionate with its comprehensive national strength. Like sports, boosting science also needs substantial policy support.
Games Success to Bring Next Big Wave of Capital
(Xinhua, 4 Sep 2008)
If the slogan "Liberate the mind for reform and opening" that China made 30 years ago can be seen as a "political insurance policy" the Chinese government bought for foreign investors, the successful hosting of the Beijing Olympic Games today is a "full insurance package" that China as a responsible, civilized and rule-abiding major power is offering to investors around the world.
Culture - International
Beijing: this rubbish revolution won't be permanent
(The Times, 8 Jul 2008)
In the run-up to the Olympics, China is changing. But who knows if it will stay the same after the Games. Beijing is obsessed with saving face in front of visitors. And in the run-up to the Olympics, that means, even down the backstreets, that garbage must vanish.
'Ha-pi-tu-mi-te-yu' is the greeting as Beijing welcomes the Olympics
(The Canadian Press, 7 Jul 2008)
In the seven years since the Olympic movement anointed Beijing as host of the 2008 Summer Games, China's capital has undergone a transformation so thoroughgoing that "makeover" doesn't begin to describe the change.
The Chinese Student Frontline in PRC's Olympic Public Diplomacy
(The Huffington Post, 6 May 2008)
When the term public diplomacy is raised in the US, it's usually in terms of the influence of an American voice in winning hearts and minds abroad. Rarely is there a useful examination of the US as a target for public diplomacy (nor is there much attention to the public diplomacy of other countries).
Networks face Oly 08 broadcast struggle
(Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Jun 2008)
The Chinese government's strict security measures could jeopardize the broadcast of the Beijing Olympics to the rest of the world. Broadcasters who have paid billions of US dollars for exclusive rights to televise the games are reportedly furious about endless red tape and unexplained delays.
Beijing hip-hop trio hopes Olympics will help pick up the beat
(The Seattle Times, 14 Jun 2008)
The fast-approaching Olympics have inspired all sorts of Beijingers: athletes, scientists, salesmen, dissidents. Even rappers such as In Three are counting on the Games and the millions of visitors drawn to Beijing to boost China's nascent hip-hop scene.
How the Chinese Communists destroyed ancient Beijing
(The Sunday Times, 15 Jun 2008)
Book review: To the Chinese of centuries past, Beijing was both the centre of the imperial state and an architectural expression of the spiritual order uniting man and heaven. A capital that survived the collapse of the empire, invasion by Japan and China’s civil war, has been conclusively doomed by the 2008 Olympic Games and by planners, speculators and foreign architects hungry for prestige.
China Olympic spin
(NDTV.com, 16 Jun 2008)
China's front foot PR where only the positives are obsessively publicized while the negatives are swept under the carpet. The Chinese government is using the Olympics to put on table everything positive they want the world to know through a heavy dose of information fed to the media in a manner that doesn't look like state control but pride of the Chinese people. But just like my friend says, 'the trick is to keep the wrap as thin as possible'. A trick the Chinese government has forgotten while serving propaganda.
Beijing Olympics 2008: China's government clamps down on entertainment
(The Daily Telegraph, 18 Jun 2008)
China is clamping down on entertainment for the Olympics, closing bars and clubs and making it more difficult for companies to lay on their usual lavish hospitality parties for clients.
Summer Olympics showcases China's rich culture
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8 Jun 2008)
About 1.5 million foreigners are expected to attend the Olympics, which will be followed by the Paralympic Games in September. They will see grand new architecture befitting the world's fourth-largest economy. Yet Beijing is also the center of China's imperial past and a trip to the city offers the country's unique traditions -- arts, architecture and culinary delicacies that Americans are just learning to appreciate.
Chinese go into training for civilised Olympic cheering
(The Irish Times, 7 Jun 2008)
The aim of the chants is to allow spectators to cheer for athletes in a smooth, civilised manner. There will be training sessions for the 800,000 students expected to attend the Games. "We want to engage in activities to better promote civilised gestures in the stadiums, to cheer on the Olympics and to cheer on China. This gesture demonstrates to the world the charisma of the Chinese people and our enthusiasm," said Guo Zhenxi of CCTV.
China makes "kung pao chicken" official for Olympics
(Los Angeles Times, 19 Jun 2008)
As it readies for an influx of visitors for the August Games, the Chinese capital has offered restaurants an official English translation of local dishes whose exotic names and alarming translations can leave foreign visitors frustrated and famished. "Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman," as the Beijing Youth Daily rendered the spicy Sichuanese dish, is now "Mapo tofu." And "chicken without sexual life" becomes mere "steamed pullet."
Chinese athletes pushed to the limit, and beyond, for Olympic gold
(Tehran Times, 21 Jun 2008)
Pressured by the national athletic system and tempted by the commercial riches awaiting star performers in the 2008 Games, China's athletes are pushing themselves to their limits and beyond, causing some to risk their health in pursuit of nationalist glory.
Chinese couples eager to wed on auspicious Olympics kickoff date
(The Canadian Press, 21 Jun 2008)
The Chinese capital is seeing a surge of couples registering to tie the knot on the auspicious Olympics opening date of Aug. 8, state media reported Saturday.
China's Olympic 'madman' gives life -- and body -- to Games
(AFP, 22 Jun 2008)
Sun Dingguo rewarded himself with his 36th Olympic-themed tattoo after completing a 10-month journey across China, pedaling his rickshaw for the glory of the Beijing Games. Sun, 30, one of China's so-called Olympic 'madmen', gave up his job last year to devote his entire life -- and his body -- to the Olympics.
Long road back to China for coach
(International Herald Tribune, 23 Jun 2008)
James Li is American 1500m and 5000m star Bernard Lagat's personal coach and the associate head coach at the University of Arizona. He is also the manager of the U.S. Olympic men's track team. There may not be a more vital member of the entire American delegation. A handsome, soft-spoken man, Li was born in China and educated at its most prestigious sports institute. Many of China's top sports officials are his peers. When no one from the United States could get a peek inside Beijing's Olympic Stadium, Li knew whom to call. One of the stadium managers slept on a bunk above him for four years in college. "I believe this is my time," said Li, who became a U.S. citizen in 1998.
Giant bed for huge Games auction
(BBC News, 26 Jun 2008)
The bed used by China's 2.26m (7ft 6in) basketball star Yao Ming is one of 200 million Olympics memorabilia items for auction online, Chinese media say. Xiong Yan, president of the China Beijing Equity Exchange, which is handling the sales, said he hoped it would be the biggest Olympics auction.
Traditional Chinese medicine could be a remedy for failure at Olympics
(The Times, 1 Jul 2008)
Chinese Olympic officials have advised national athletes not to take traditional remedies because some contain banned substances such as herbal ephedrine, a stimulant. But many still take them, including Yao Ming, the nation's star basketball player, who announced in April that he would use traditional medicine to help his recovery from surgery on his ankle.
Secret Ways To See The Olympics
(Forbes, 1 Jul 2008)
Interested in attending the Olympics but didn't plan ahead? You may be in luck--especially if you're a corporate big shot with a private jet and more than $40,000 to burn on you and your loved one
NBA Uses Beijing Olympics to Tap China's `Amazing' Potential
(Bloomberg, 2 Jul 2008)
The National Basketball Association, the most-watched sports league in China, is opening its first stores in Beijing and using the Olympics to boost popularity in its biggest overseas market.
Denmark 'world's happiest nation'
(BBC News, 3 Jul 2008)
Denmark is the happiest country in the world, according to the latest World Values Survey published by the United States National Science Foundation...Puerto Rico and Colombia completed the top three happiest nations. Zimbabwe was found to be the least happy, with Russia and Iraq also in the bottom 10.
Olympics: High hopes for Asia at Beijing
(The Economic Times, 5 Jul 2008)
While the three Asian heavyweights [China, Japan, and South Korea] should again take the bulk of the glory, smaller fry like Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong put athletes on the podium in 2004 and will be looking to improve in Beijing.
Behave during Olympics, China tells citizens
(Express India, 6 Jul 2008)
China has asked its citizens to display good manners and improve professional ethics to create a "sound social environment" for the games. Local governments, especially of host and co-host cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianji, Qinhuangdao, Shenyang and Qingdao have been asked to step up efforts to promote "civilised manners" and "social volunteering".
Music as Cultural Diplomacy: Perspectives and experiences from musicians, academics and diplomats
(Cultural Diplomacy News, 8 Jul 2008)
The International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy which took place between the 23rd and 27th of June covered a range of different topics related to culture and its purpose in achieving diplomacy. Among some of the topics presented at the symposium were business, environment, art and sport, including a seminar on “music as cultural diplomacy”.
Getting Your Point Across
(Reuters, 8 Jul 2008)
(Photo essay) Wei Shengchu, 58, a supporter of traditional Chinese medicine, poses for photos in front of Beijing Railway Station with his head covered with acupuncture needles depicting 205 national flags and an Olympic torch.
Sports Fan Rice to be at Olympics Closing Ceremony
(Reuters, 10 Jul 2008)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes to watch some of the competition in the final days of Beijing's Olympic Games before attending the closing ceremony next month, her spokesman said on Thursday.
Not on the Menu at Beijing Olympics: Dogs
(Epicurious, 11 Jul 2008)
Out of respect for Western dining mores, man's best friend will not be offered at Olympic-connected restaurants, and Chinese officials are trying strongly to convince other eateries to follow suit.
Four Weeks to Go and Beijing's Unknown Army is in Retreat
(The Guardian, 12 Jul 2008)
Beijing has replaced its notoriously smelly public toilets with modern, cleaner conveniences. To tidy the streets, it has increased the penalty on spitting, launched anti-litter campaigns and hired tens of thousands of migrant workers. But the clean-up will soon be extended to many of those doing the cleaning. On July 20, many of the city's migrant workers - who have done more than anyone to build and beautify the Olympic city - have been ordered to return to their home towns.
Mao dropped from new China note
(BBC News, 7 Jul 2008)
For the first time in nearly a decade China is issuing new banknotes without the image of Chairman Mao Zedong. The 10 yuan ($1.5; £0.75) notes instead feature Beijing's new Olympic stadium on the front, with an ancient Greek statue of a discus thrower on the back.
Olympics Spur New Guides To China, Beijing
(Courant.com, 13 Jul 2008)
The coming Olympic Games in Beijing have spurred production of a slew of new guides to China. Along with books from most of the major travel publishers come four noteworthy new products, each offering readers a completely different experience: a literary companion, Mobil and Zagat guides, and a bilingual map.
The road to Beijing: I am carrying a torch for Olympic ideal, not China
(The Independent, 13 Jul 2008)
Allan Hubbard describes his experience deciding whether or not to run with the Olympic torch, and the what the experience itself was like.
Chinese Dominance Not Guaranteed
(Sports Illustrated, 12 Jul 2008)
In a few weeks, a 17-day competition between athletic superpowers for domination of the world's playing fields begins with a handshake between basketball team captains.
China Downbeat but Race for Most Medals Should be Close
(Reuters, 15 Jul 2008)
China has spent the last two years downplaying its chances of leapfrogging the Americans at the top of the Olympic medals table in Beijing, but the race for global sporting supremacy still looks like a close one.
Despite Olympics, Beijing May Draw Fewer Foreigners in August
(The New York Sun, 17 Jul 2008)
The city expects 400,000 to 450,000 foreign visitors in August, as compared with 420,000 a year ago, the deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Administration, Xiong Yumei, told reporters, according to Bloomberg News. The lack of any expected surge in foreign visitors is likely due to China's move in April to limit visas as part of an effort to ensure security at the Games.
Olympics Supporters Face Banner Blackout
(The Age, 17 Jul 2008)
All banners and large flags have been banned from Beijing Olympic venues as the Chinese Government seeks to further restrict public free speech during next month's Games.
China Mobilises 2 Lakh (200,000) Cheerleaders for Olympics
(Express India, 16 Jul 2008)
China has mobilised some two lakh (200,000) cheerleaders in an effort to stir up the spirit of spectators and any national team that needs morale boosting at the upcoming Beijing Olympics. The volunteers have been drawn from the communities, companies, enterprises, high schools and universities to “promote a civilised way of watching the Games”, Shen said.
Germany's Schroeder to Attend Olympic Opening
(AP, 16 Jul 2008)
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder plans to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics next month, his office said Wednesday.
We Didn't Snub Manmohan on Olympic Visit, Clarifies China
(Express India, 17 Jul 2008)
China rejected suggestions that it had snubbed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by not extending an invitation for the Olympics opening ceremony and said Indian leaders were welcome to the event. Beijing also clarified that it is the national Olympic committee of the nation concerned which invites the head of a government or state.
China Table Tennis Medal Winner Gao Now Playing for USA
(AFP, 20 Jul 2008)
Gao Jun, who won a 1992 Olympic silver medal for China in women's doubles table tennis, returns to the land of her birth for the Beijing Olympics at age 39 as a player for the United States.
Chinese to Leave Diving Rivals in a Spin
(The Guardian, 22 Jul 2008)
With China top in all but one diving discipline, athletes and officials are concerned about the high expectations of the public and keen to talk down their chances.
China Unveils 4 High Speed Trains for Beijing Olympics
(The Hindu, 25 Jul 2008)
China has unveiled four high-speed trains, the first of its kind made only for sightseeing during the Beijing Olympics.
Athletes to Get Christian-Atheist Book at Beijing Olympics
(The Christian Post, 24 Jul 2008)
The Chinese government has granted American evangelist, Luis Palau, permission to distribute his book, A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian, to athletes attending the Games. The book records a conversation between atheist Chinese diplomat Zhao Qizheng – a high-ranking Chinese government official – and the Christian evangelist.
Records Say Chinese Gymnasts May Be Under Age
(The New York Times, 28 Jul 2008)
China named its Olympic women’s gymnastics team on Friday, and the inclusion of at least two athletes has further raised questions, widespread in the sport, about whether the host nation for the Beijing Games is using under-age competitors.
Lost in the New Beijing: The Old Neighborhood
(The New York Times, 28 Jul 2008)
Chinese preservationists are facing a new threat: gentrification. The few ancient courtyard houses that survived destruction have become coveted status symbols for the country’s growing upper class and for wealthy foreign investors.
Before Guests Arrive, Beijing Hides Some Messes
(The New York Times, 29 Jul 2008)
Beijing is polishing off one of the world’s most expensive makeovers with a whitewash. Along the historic central axis of the city that runs from the Yongdingmen Gate due north to the Drum Tower, the authorities are doing their best to give the old city a new face. This includes hiding some residences and shops behind newly constructed walls or screens.
Olympic Ticket Sales Descend into Melee in China
(The Dallas Morning News, 26 Jul 2008)
The scene outside Beijing's main Olympic ticket office descended into chaos on Friday as nearly 40,000 people hoping to see the Games overwhelmed officials, forcing police to block access to the site.
Fun May be a Casualty of Beijing's Effort for a Perfect Olympic Games
(Los Angeles Times, 26 Jul 2008)
Fearful of political protests or terrorist attacks, Beijing feels increasingly battened down as the Aug. 8 opening ceremony approaches, leading some wags to predict a "fun-free" or "killjoy" Games.
Chinese Snatch up Olympics Tickets
(The Christian Science Monitor, 25 Jul 2008)
Tens of thousands of Chinese fans have purchased the last block of Olympic tickets released. Visitors arriving without tickets might find a couple of tickets available to something like the preliminary soccer heat between Belgium and New Zealand, but that’s about it. For the more prestigious events there will probably be some scalpers around. But they will have to be discreet in a city crawling with police who have announced a 10-15 day jail term for anyone caught re-selling tickets. And the prices will be crazy.
China Unveils Largest Delegation for Beijing
(ABC News (Australia), 25 Jul 2008)
China's delegation for next month's Olympics will be the largest for any Games with 639 athletes representing the host nation in Beijing, sports minister Liu Peng said on Friday.
Chinese First to Check in at Olympic Village
(Press Trust of India, 27 Jul 2008)
China today officially opened the Olympic Village that will house close to 16,000 athletes and officials during next month's Games with the host country's delegation first to check in at the heavily guarded complex.
Women on Stage as China's Olympic Villages Open
(Xinhua, 27 Jul 2008)
Women are in top management positions at the the Olympic villages in China.
Professor Examines China's Olympic Dreams in New Book
(Kalamazoo Gazette, 28 Jul 2008)
Kalamazoo College professor, Xu Guoqi, an associate professor of history and East Asian affairs, notes in his new book "Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008," that "the Chinese have suffered the syndrome of can-do spirit and inferiority."
China Dumps Gold Medallists From Olympics 'For Political Reasons'
(The Daily Telegraph, 29 Jul 2008)
More than half of China's gold medalists from the Athens Olympics have been purged from the country's current team, some allegedly for political reasons.
Chinese Games to Start with a Big, Big Bang
(Reuters, 1 Aug 2008)
Beijing's new national stadium, the steel-latticed 'Bird's Nest', hosts the lavish opening ceremony which will draw on some 10,000 performers and could net a global television audience of more than four billion people. The world got a tantalising glimpse of what is in store when a South Korean television crew slipped past the security cordon last week to film a secret dress rehearsal. Their footage, flashed over the internet, showed aerial artists floating over the track, kung-fu formations and humpbacked whales cavorting around the rim of the Bird's Nest.
Beijing Olympics: Police State Wastes Goodwill, Says Stadium Designer
(The Guardian, 2 Aug 2008)
China is wasting international goodwill with an Olympic security operation that makes the country look like a police state, according to the artist behind Beijing's spectacular new stadium.
China Warns Protesters, Allows Tiananmen Music
(Reuters, 3 Aug 2008)
China allowed a first foreign orchestra concert in Tiananmen Square on Sunday but also issued warnings to would-be protesters in delicate efforts to show openness while avoiding embarrassment at the Olympics.
For Chinese, It’s the Teflon Olympics
(The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Games have been dogged with global criticism on everything from censorship to pollution. But Chinese people still see them as their government does: a great coming-out party.
Play Magazine: Olympics Issue
(The New York Times, 3 Aug 2008)
The State Requests That Citizen Liu Win Gold; This Olympic Performance Made More Beautiful by Cover Girl; To the Victor, the Drug Test; The Games, Abridged; Beijing by the Numbers; Tryouts and Errors
The XY Games
(The New York Times, 3 Aug 2008)
If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially, and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what exactly are the Chinese authorities testing for?
Olympic Stadium With a Design to Remember
(The New York Times, 6 Aug 2008)
Given the astounding expectations piled upon the National Stadium, I’m surprised it hasn’t collapsed under the strain.
China’s Gold Rush
(The New York Times, 5 Aug 2008)
Like the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war, China is looking to make a statement by winning more Summer Olympic gold medals than the United States. Unlike in the Soviet Union, capitalism has infiltrated nearly all aspects of Chinese life -- except sports. Chinese compete like Adam Smith in the marketplace but like Vladimir Lenin in the arena.
Chinese Bent on Sporting Supremacy
(The Toronto Star, 6 Aug 2008)
China's considerable history has been shaped by no end of ambitious national projects. This month the world will begin to comprehend the import and outcome of Project 119. It is, at its heart, a sporting endeavor. One hundred nineteen represented the number of gold medals available in track and field, swimming and the water-bound events such as canoing, rowing, sailing and kayaking at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. China won exactly one of those 119 golds in 2000 and ever since has been endeavoring to become the most athletically dominant nation.
Chinese Hush up Serious Injury to Acrobat
(The Daily Telegraph, 6 Aug 2008)
A Chinese acrobat has been seriously injured after she fell during a rehearsal for Friday’s opening ceremony in Beijing, the Daily Telegraph has learned. The accident took place more than a week ago but was kept quiet by the Chinese authorities for fear that the three-and-a-half-hour spectacular would be overshadowed by the news.
Protests? Pride? Gold Medals? How Will Beijing Come Out of These Games?
(ESPN, 6 Aug 2008)
What's at stake? To answer this question, a roundtable of four distinguished journalists based in China who have had the chance to watch these events unfold before them was assembled and their conversation recorded. Participants included: Melinda Liu, Anna Sophie Loewenberg, Maggie Rauch, and Raymond Zhou.
Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal
(NBC News, 30 Jul 2008)
[photo essay] Images of the opening ceremony preparations.
Images: Olympics Help Remake Beijing
(NBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
Photo Essay on the impact of the Olympics on Beijing.
Gritty Renegade Now Directs China’s Close-Up
(The New York Times, 7 Aug 2008)
For much of the past quarter century, the Chinese director Zhang Yimou made films that showcased his country’s struggle against poverty, war and political misrule to the outside world — films that Chinese, for the most part, never saw. But when the Olympics kick off Friday at China’s new National Stadium, with President Hu Jintao of China, President Bush and other world leaders in attendance and perhaps one billion people watching live on television, Mr. Zhang will preside over the opening ceremonies.
Olympic Message to Some in Beijing Is ‘Please Leave’
(The New York Times, 7 Aug 2008)
Like thousands of others who packed Beijing’s main train station on Thursday, Li Tianchao, an itinerant worker, was prompted to leave Beijing by a lack of work and an unwritten government policy encouraging migrant workers to clear out until the dignitaries and journalists have gone home.
Israel Brings Largest Contingent, Great Expectations to Beijing
(JTA, 7 Aug 2008)
Israel's Olympic contingent of 43 athletes is its largest ever and possibly its strongest -- despite inexperience.
The Flag Man Stands Down
(Time, 9 Aug 2008)
Lopez Lomong, a Sudanese refugee and new U.S. citizen carried the American flag at the Olympic opening ceremony. Asked by the international press to join the critics of China's human rights record, its ties to the Sudan, and its decision to revoke the American Darfur activist and former Olympian Joey Cheek's visa Lomong dodged. "I'm here to inspire other kids who are out there watching these Olympics," he said at one point.
Jiayou Xinxilan: Olympic Chinese for Kiwis
(Stuff (New Zealand), 9 Aug 2008)
Auckland University's Confucius Institute has today produced a guide to enhance the experience of watching the Chinese Olympics including the Chinese characters New Zealand itself.
Utahns Understand What the Olympics Mean to the Host
(The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 Aug 2008)
In 2002 the setting was Salt Lake City, in 2008 it's Beijing, but in both cases the political objectives of the hosts were the same. Utahns should understand better than most what the Olympics mean to the Chinese and why they are so anxious to make them an unblemished success.
Epic Opening Ceremony Kicks off Olympic Games in Beijing
(International Business Times, 9 Aug 2008)
China did its best to present itself to the world as it hosted the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games with an epic display of fireworks and choreography as world leaders watched. The ceremony's storyline and scenes covered 5,000 years of Chinese history. People, objects and events in the production included the Great Wall, opera puppets, astronauts and achievements in music and science.
Chinese Told to Watch Opening Ceremony at Home
(The Daily Telegraph, 9 Aug 2008)
While China invited the world to its Olympic coming-out parade, for the ordinary people of the host city Beijing there was scant chance to join in the festivities.
China's Army of Student Fans Drilled Like Soldiers
(The Daily Telegraph, 11 Aug 2008)
Dressed identically and chanting the same upbeat slogans, Chinese students appear at every Olympic event to cheer on Chinese and foreign competitors alike. An 800,000-strong army of students has been drilled like soldiers to provide "atmosphere" at the Games, following concerns that traditionally reserved Chinese spectators might not enter into the full spirit of the event.
Harmony and the Dream
(The New York Times, 11 Aug 2008)
The opening ceremony in Beijing was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones. The ceremony drew from China’s long history, but surely the most striking features were the images of thousands of Chinese moving as one. We’ve seen displays of mass conformity before, but this was collectivism of the present — a high-tech vision of the harmonious society performed in the context of China’s miraculous growth.
In Grand Olympic Show, Some Sleight of Voice
(The New York Times, 12 Aug 2008)
When Lin Miaoke opened her mouth to sing "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the voice that was actually heard was a recording of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi.
USA's 'Redeem Team' wallop China
(Stuff.co.nz, 11 Aug 2008)
The United States vs. China as the opening basketball game was the best of the west against the beasts of the east. A matchup of contrasting idealogies, on and off the basketball court. A contest that in so many ways symbolised these Olympics. China desperately wanting to show it can do things as well as the world's superpower, but in the end not quite managing to pull it off.
China Drafts in 'Spectators'
(The Daily Telegraph, 12 Aug 2008)
China has drafted in specially trained 'spectators' to inject some atmosphere into the half-empty stadiums and echoing plazas of the Beijing Olympics. After denying there was any problem with attendances for several days the Beijing Organising committee have confessed their worries at the poor turn out. To fill the gaps in attendance the Chinese have been using huge numbers of yellow-shirted 'fans' who occupy blocks of empty seats, clapping and cheering equally for opposing teams.
An Opportunity For China And For The World
(The People's Daily Online, 12 Aug 2008)
The Olympic Games has created an opportunity for understanding and communication between cultures. Those who come to China during the Olympics will see China with their own eyes. "Westerners have various opinions and different standpoints with regard to the question of China. This opportunity will allow them to form more realistic views, including perspectives on the development of China," predicts Eberhard Sandschneider, a German China specialist
Beijing Fans Cheer During Tennis Points
(NPR, 13 Aug 2008)
Fans in Beijing find Olympic tennis so exciting they sometimes start applauding before a rally ends. Such behavior would be considered a grotesque breach of etiquette at, say, Wimbledon. "They're really getting into the whole tennis thing," top-seeded Roger Federer after his third-round win Wednesday. "They get excited for different reasons here in China, it seems like."
Spanish Player Defends Controversial Photo
(NPR, 13 Aug 2008)
Players on Spain's Olympic basketball team defended a photo in an ad showing the players using their fingers to apparently make their eyes look more Chinese.
British Ticket Touts Defy Chinese Authorities
(The Daily Telegraph, 13 Aug 2008)
British scalpers are doing a roaring trade in black-market tickets at the Beijing Olympics despite efforts by the Chinese authorities to crackdown on their illegal activities.
Beijing Olympics Enjoys Majority Support in U.S.: Poll
(Xinhua, 14 Aug 2008)
The majority of Americans support China's hosting of the Olympics, and it is a consensus across party and ideological lines, a new poll has found. The survey, released by the Associated Press and survey agency Ipsos Wednesday, showed 55 percent of the respondents support the Beijing Olympics, while two-thirds of them said they are interested in it.
The Silver Lining
(Slate.com, 13 Aug 2008)
The U.S. women's gymnastics team overturned cultural cliches in the team event. We've heard a lot about the collective, hardworking ethos of Chinese culture--which David Brooks contrasted earlier this week with America's individualistic impulses--but the irony early on was that it was the Chinese who seemed to be joyfully and expressively performing while the American girls looked drawn and anxious.
A Cutting-Edge Olympics
(The New York Times, 14 Aug 2008)
The Olympic narrative is always about the human effort to excel in athletic competition, a story of grace and stamina under pressure. This year it is also about technology and how it is shaping both the athletes’ performance and the viewers’ experience.
China Loves Its Soccer. Its Team? Don’t Ask.
(The New York Times, 15 Aug 2008)
In its quest for sports supremacy, China is placing its hopes for winning the medal count on a panoply of athletes honed to near perfection in sports like gymnastics, diving, rowing, table tennis and hurdling. It has shown its athletic prowess by climbing atop the medals table in the opening days of competition. The nation, though, demands much less of its men’s soccer team.
Chinese Fans Show Love for NBA Stars
(The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Aug 2008)
The NBA is big worldwide, and especially so in China. The league is marketing itself with merchandise stores and other avenues, while staffing offices around the country and staging exhibition games. NBA telecasts are watched by an estimated 450 million viewers -- about one-third of the population -- and some 300 million Chinese play recreational basketball.
Taiwan in Shock After Loss to China
(The Guardian, 16 Aug 2008)
The game was so important that Taiwan's baseball chief had offered to resign if his team, officially named "Chinese Taipei" because of political sensitivities with China, lost. Other heads could roll as well, he said ahead of the Olympics.
Table Tennis Legend Averts National Disaster
(The Toronto Star, 16 Aug 2008)
One cannot imagine the horror that beset Peking University Gymnasium in the midst of this improbability yesterday morning – the mighty Wang Liqin struggling to defeat an Australian named William Henzell. It will go down in Chinese history, we have determined after consultation with the finest translators in the business, as "a doozy."
Nastia Liukin Wins Women's All-Around Title
(China Daily, 16 Aug 2008)
Nastia Liukin of the United States edged her compatriot Shawn Johnson to win the women's individual all-around gold medal after a breathtaking Olympic gymnastics competition here on Friday. Finishing one-two on the podium, the American duo forced the time for another national anthem to be played after hosts China wrapped up all the first three gymnastics titles in the National Indoor Stadium
‘Minorities Park’ Has Everything But Minorities
(Taipei Times, 16 Aug 2008)
The Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, where seven people on Wednesday protested China’s human-rights abuses in Tibet, occupies the southwestern corner of the huge swathe of northern Beijing that has been redeveloped into the National Olympic Park. Until recently, the park employed Tibetan monks from Sichuan Province. Tibetan dancers and singers still add some color to the Tibetan section, but the monks are gone. “They haven’t been here for several months,” a shop assistant said last week. “They’re coming back next year.” Wang Kun of the park management office also said last week that the monks were unlikely to return until after the Olympics.
It's The Winning, Not The Taking Part That Counts
(BBC Sport, 17 Aug 2008)
Many have seen losses by top Chinese sharp shooters as confirmation the enormous pressure put on the Chinese athletes at these Games. They have to succeed, otherwise, to use the old communist phrase, they are consigned to the dustbin of history.
Hurdler Liu Xiang Done Without a Run in Olympics
(AP, 18 Aug 2008)
Liu Xiang and the entire nation of China looked forward to this moment for years: The defending Olympic champion lining up to run the 110-meter hurdles at the Beijing Games. He didn't even get to race. Grimacing and rubbing his troublesome right hamstring before getting into his crouch, Liu pulled up lame just steps into the first round of qualifying Monday, leaving the Summer Games' host country without one of its biggest stars — and far and away its biggest star in track and field.
Happiness Can't Be Faked
(The Guardian, 18 Aug 2008)
The 2008 Olympics has created an illusion of China to the public and to the outside world. It is so fantastic, so unreal, that the entire meaning of the games is being distorted.
China's Liu Bows Out Without Running Olympic Race
(AP, 18 Aug 2008)
In any other city, at any other stadium, under any other circumstances, Liu Xiang might not have shown up at all. This, however, was far from any old setting. This was the Bird's Nest, the 91,000-seat centerpiece of the Olympics. The Beijing Olympics. And this was a moment, shortly before lunchtime Monday, that Liu's country of 1.3 billion had anticipated for years: China's only track and field superstar — one of China's most recognizable faces period — competing to defend his 110-meter hurdles title at home. And it ended after all of two full strides.
Super Dan' Invoked Chairman Mao on His Way to Gold
(Express India, 20 Aug 2008)
After winning men's singles badminton crown at the Beijing Olympics, China's Lin Dan has revealed that the secret to his success was a lucky badge of 'Chairman' Mao Zedong which he wore during his campaign.
In China, Jocks Don't Rule School; But the Smart Kids, They're Cool
(The Wall Street Journal, 20 Aug 2008)
China's elite young athletes may be winning a lot of medals at the Olympics. But in China, organized sports still aren't really something for regular kids. Less than 3% of Chinese secondary-school students attend schools with sports teams. Children with exceptional athletic prowess or physical attributes are pulled out of ordinary schools early on and sent to the special academies that train the country's sporting elite. That poses a big challenge for sporting-goods companies such as Nike Inc. and Adidas AG. Both are looking to China and its 1.3 billion people to drive sales growth and both have set out to transform Chinese youth sports.
Dashing Dreams: China's Olympic Track Star Liu Xiang Disappoints
(ABC (America), 19 Aug 2008)
"Liu Xiang is the person who inspired the entire nation about something they never dreamed of," said Dong Jun, former long-time sports commentator for Chinese Central Television CCTV. "Of course, this should be the most important, the heaviest medal of all. ... It is a big blow for China," Dong told ABC News.
China Stages Tibet Opera During Games
(The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug 2008)
An opera written to offer a rose-tinted portrayal of China's relationship with Tibet will run in a large Beijing theatre for three days this week.
Brown Praises Beijing Olympics
(AFP, 23 Aug 2008)
Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday, telling China's leader that the Beijing Olympics had captured the world's imagination, Chinese state media reported. Hu thanked Brown for showing his support for the Beijing Games when he welcomed the Beijing Olympic flame at his residence at 10 Downing Street in April, the report said.
IOC to Investigate Allegations Concerning Age Discrepancy of Chinese Gymnast He Kexin
(TransWorld News, 23 Aug 2008)
After already saying the matter was closed the International Olympic Committee has reversed course and launched an investigation into allegations that Chinese authorities fabricated the age of star gymnast He Kexin in order to make her eligible for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Beijing Olympics Have Been a Wonderful Distraction
(Vernon County Broadcaster, 22 Aug 2008)
In my life, I've watched a lot of the Olympics. Of course the Lake Placid games of 1980 have been the best, but this year’s summer Olympics have been right up there.
China Confused in The Art of Chanting
(The Daily Telegraph, 22 Aug 2008)
The culture gap that exists between China and the West is never more apparent than in the stands. China does not a have a template for cheering.
Olympics as PR: Here's the new China
(Express India, 24 Aug 2008)
If proof were needed that the Olympic Games are meant to give China an image makeover, look no further than the 10-yuan note: Chairman Mao is out, the Bird's Nest is in. Perhaps just as symbolically, there are only enough of the bills that replace the late Communist Party leader's likeness with the iconic stadium to make them a collector's item - for most of the billions of dollars in transactions done each day in China, Mao Zedong is still the man.
China Put on Great Show in Beijing, But With Iron Fist
(The Seattle Times, 25 Aug 2008)
China will put the finishing touches on the Beijing Olympics today with a closing ceremony that's expected to dazzle with performances much different from the opening.
Registration Error Led to Underage Gymnast Reports, China Says
(Bloomberg, 25 Aug 2008)
A Chinese Olympic gymnastics champion whose age is under investigation had her date of birth incorrectly registered at a tournament last year, leading to inaccurate reports of her age, Chinese officials said today.
A Biblical Seven Years
(The New York Times, 26 Aug 2008)
Olympics don’t change history. They are mere snapshots — a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see. But, as snapshots go, the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful — and it’s one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season.
The 2008 Olympics in Pictures
(The New York Times, 25 Aug 2008)
Links to photo essays of the Olympics
America’s Commercials at the Olympics
(The New York Times, 24 Aug 2008)
Most of the thousands of spots that ran expressed sentiments familiar to viewers of so-called big events on television. Patriotism is good. Striving for athletic achievement is noble. The world would be a better place if we all drank the same beverages, drove the same cars, shopped at the same stores and bought things with the same credit cards. And too many commercials relied on predictable images to evoke China for Western consumers: dragons, pandas, ninjas, the Great Wall and homages to (or parodies of) “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” This article provides examples of how advertisers fared.
China Braces For Return to Normality
(ABC (Australia), 26 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympics have been declared "truly exceptional". But after seven years of preparations and a grand event Olympics mania is now dissipating in the Chinese capital.
Faster, Higher, Stronger: What the Olympics Means to China's Women
(News Blaze, 26 Aug 2008)
It may sound ironic, but attitudes, which were prevalent in feudal China, are responsible for the amazing success of Chinese women in the sporting arena today.
Olympics Reveal East-West Divide
(Channel NewsAsia.com, 27 Aug 2008)
In 1889 British author Rudyard Kipling intoned, "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet/Till Earth and Sky stand present at God's great Judgment Seat." Do this month's games falsify or affirm Kipling's geocultural assessment? As someone who has attended and studied several games and gained backstage access to Olympic officials, the recent events in Beijing confirmed the verity of Kipling's verse.
Welcome Back From Beijing
(Vanguard, 28 Aug 2008)
The thinking of the West might have been that in hosting the Olympics, China would; at least, reveal an appreciable amount of her hidden parts like, for instance, the motivations of her philosophy, or the projection of her ideologies. Well, the Beijing Olympics have come and gone, as they say, and what have we discovered?
China's Winning Olympic Spirit
(The Boston Globe, 1 Sep 2008)
Now that the Olympics has come to a successful end, China has impressed the world by its efforts to turn a highly politicized and competitive event into a harmonious experience for the world.
Dazzled By The Energy, Warmth And Curiosity Of China
(The Londoner, 3 Sep 2008)
Gord Hume shares his impressions of the immense contrasts of the Olympic host. The Olympics were a triumph for China. Veteran Olympic observers told me it was the best-organized games ever. While security was sometimes a little exuberant and the food available at the events was awful, the overall experience was exhilarating.
China: Not Lost In Translation
(Blaze News, 2 Sep 2008)
For the first time in Olympic history a private company - Beijing Yuanpei Century Translation Co. Ltd. - has been contracted for official translation and interpretation services. With linguistic resources from Peking University, a team of 600 professional translators of the company would be working round-the-clock during the games. This in addition to the Olympics Volunteer Programme which has enrolled over 400,000 English-speaking recruits to combat the influx of foreigners.
China's Chinese Food
(AP (via Hartford Courant), 7 Aug 2008)
"Real" Chinese food is a compelling crazy-quilt of cuisines as diverse as the world's most populous nation itself. Your taste buds will never be bored. For Americans visiting Beijing during the Olympics, the best advice is the most Chinese of all: Be omnivorous. Try that duck webbing, that sea slug, that deer tendon, that pigeon wing. Be open to tastes and textures and sensations you've never sampled. And please, please — don't loudly summon the waiter and ask for sweet-and-sour pork.
Paralympic Boon to China's Disabled
(Los Angeles Times, 5 Sep 2008)
If the Summer Olympics were a coming-out party for China as a whole, the Paralympic Games will be an even greater event for the country's disabled. In preparation for the 11-day international competition that opens Saturday, Beijing is being retrofitted with ramps for wheelchairs and street crossing signals for the blind. The city also has acquired 2,000 "kneeling buses."
Prejudice & the Paralympics
(The Independent, 5 Sep 2008)
It is not until you are inside the Paralympic Village itself that you see a single Chinese person in a wheelchair or one with any other obvious disabilities; China's 83 million disabled are a largely invisible presence in a country where disabilities are viewed as a source of shame in some families, particularly in urban areas, and where discrimination is widespread.
A Glorious Opening in Beijing
(BBC Sport, 6 Sep 2008)
The organisers of the Beijing Paralympics had long promised a Games of equal splendour to the Olympics and Saturday's spectacular opening ceremony has set a high benchmark for the rest of the competition.
Chinese Power - International
Homegrown threats top Olympics security worries-official
(The Guardian, 7 Jul 2008)
Tian Yixiang, head of the Beijing Olympic Games Security Protection Coordinating Group, said the top "terror" threats to the August Games come from Uighur militants campaigning for independence for Xinjiang in China's far northwest, from Tibetan independence groups, and from followers of the banned Falun Gong sect.
Angry China
(The Economist, 1 May 2008)
China is in a frightening mood. The sight of thousands of Chinese people waving xenophobic fists suggests that a country on its way to becoming a superpower may turn out to be a more dangerous force than optimists had hoped. But it isn't just foreigners who should be worried by these scenes: the Chinese government, which has encouraged this outburst of nationalism, should also be afraid.
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A Torch Job To Liberty
(The Washington Post, 19 Apr 2008)
To the Chinese government, the word "harmony" is apparently synonymous with suppression. The Olympic torch is in danger of being extinguished for good, but not by demonstrators. Every day it's put out by Chinese officials and their exported paramilitary force, who seem to think the Olympic spirit is not about accommodating the world, but about forcing the world to accommodate them.
Long road to the Beijing games
(Al Jazeera English, 29 Apr 2008)
The Olympics were seen as a stage to introduce China to the international community, bring it closer to the rest of the world — a culmination of it’s liberalisation since the early 1980s. Instead, the past few weeks have shown the Olympics has the potential for the opposite effect. The global slap the Chinese have felt has stirred up fierce nationalism - and many here are wondering why the approval of the international community should even matter.
The Ugly Chinese
(Post Global, 1 May 2008)
What does this all mean for China? To me, it means the end of an era of China's "soft power." For the past decade, China's "soft power" has helped fuel Beijing's rise by attempting to assuage fears of an expansionist China...But now across the globe China is dropping in the polls. And it's not due to lack of contact with the Chinese, people who are polled say, it's because we're getting to know them better.
The Facets Of Chinese Nationalism
(The Washington Post, 5 May 2008)
Frequently the past few months, I have been asked about the wisdom of using the Olympics as an opportunity to push China to improve its human rights record. Underlying these questions is a sense that international pressure may have played into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party by triggering nationalist emotions and rallying indignant Chinese people behind the regime.
Quake Helps Mend China's Image
(Asia Times Online, 19 May 2008)
The sudden disaster has united a nation that only a week ago was fuming with anger over the perceived foreign insults to its Olympic pride. Immensely proud of hosting the biggest sporting event for the first time, this August, China had readied to showcase its modernity, development and win soft power on the international scene.
Soothe, seethe
(The Economist, 4 Jun 2008)
China does not want the West or its neighbours to get alarmed. It fears that anti-China sentiment abroad could fuel nationalism at home, which in turn could pressure on policymakers to engage in a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat responses. So even as Chinese nationalists have been seething over perceived insults by foreigners, their leaders have been reaching out to traditional rivals.
Victim or Victor? China's Olympic Odyssey
(The Wall Street Journal, 7 Jun 2008)
Resurgent nationalists are counting on a torrent of gold medals to erase centuries of humiliation. Will the Beijing Games complete a restoration of Chinese greatness or arrogance? China still is a society given to mass spectacles, national pageants, officially boosted nationalism and grand state-led projects. Chinese nationalism -- with its belief in the Darwinian struggle of nations -- is rather anachronistic, and so are the Olympic Games.
Olympic Pressure on China
(Council on Foreign Relations, 17 Jun 2008)
Setting the Stage. Turning Beijing Green. The 'Genocide Olympics'. Tibetan Protests. Carrying the Torch. Nationalist Backlash. Regulating International Media Coverage
Beijing prepares for 'High-tech Olympics'
(InfoWorld, 12 Jun 2008)
China will have spent five years and an estimated $400 million on IT planning and technology by the time the Olympics open on Aug. 8. One of the three themes of the Beijing Olympics is to make it a "High-tech Olympics." What will be the legacy of the Games' IT infrastructure for Beijing?
China casts wider net in crackdowns
(Globe and Mail, 12 Jun 2008)
In this Olympic year in Beijing, human rights are taking a hammering. Security sweeps and police crackdowns are hitting a wide range of targets, not just dissidents but whole new classes of ordinary people, from street retailers to ethnic minorities, from beggars to patients-rights advocates.
Will China's economy perform at Games?
(BBC News, 16 Jun 2008)
With China's economy running, leaping and jumping ahead, it seems logical to assume that hosting the Olympic games in August will provide another commercial stride forward.
Hong Kong warns of possible Olympics sabotage threat
(Reuters, 16 Jun 2008)
Security concerns over a possible terrorist attack during the Beijing Olympics spread to Hong Kong on Monday, with a top immigration official warning the city's hosting of Olympics equestrian events could be targeted.
As Olympics near, China punishes 128 firms over drugs
(International Herald Tribune, 19 Jun 2008)
Trying to show that they are determined to host a clean Olympic Games, the Chinese authorities have revoked licenses for three drug makers and punished 125 other companies for making, selling or distributing performance-enhancing drugs. The vast majority of the companies punished were retail pharmacies, the government said in a statement released through Xinhua, the official news agency.
Olympic Pressure on China
(Council on Foreign Relations, 17 Jun 2008)
In its campaign to win the right to host the Olympics, China pledged to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the games would remain "open in every aspect." Many believe China is failing to abide by that pledge, but the vehemence of anti-China sentiment abroad has spurred a nationalist backlash within China, and the Chinese government strongly condemns what it considers the politicization of the Olympic Games.
IOC brings in no-betting rule for Beijing
(The Times, 7 Jun 2008)
Olympic officials will work with Interpol investigators this summer to track illegal betting rings around the Beijing Games under a new zero-tolerance approach to gambling and drugs in sport. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is deploying a special monitoring unit amid fears that the credibility of results could be compromised by betting scams.
Quake could signal a social change in China
(International Herald Tribune, 9 Jun 2008)
There is a chance that the outpouring of civic spirit in response to the disaster may not only reshape Chinese politics but also strengthen its economic foundations. The idea of social capital as a long-term driver of economic growth is well known to academics. Increased social cohesion may also be the main outcome of the Beijing Olympics. China is likely to be able to take collective pride in a well-run Games. From an economic point of view, analysts have expressed confidence that economic growth will not plunge after the capital spending splurge for the Olympics.
China bans fireworks in Beijing ahead of Olympics
(Guardian, 10 Jun 2008)
China has banned all fireworks from Beijing ahead of and during the Olympics for safety reasons, state media reported today. "The ban on firecrackers and fireworks will be extended to areas beyond the fifth ring road," the China Daily said, referring to a major motorway six miles outside the city centre. China has already introduced a host of safety measures ahead of the Olympics, as it aims to ensure the event -- designed to showcase its rise as a major power -- goes smoothly.
Beijing Olympics 2008: China creates anti-terror squad
(The Daily Telegraph, 21 Jun 2008)
China has created a special 100,000 anti-terrorist force for the Olympics, reinforcing the impression that the Games will be dominated by tough security measures. Restrictions on Chinese and foreigners in Beijing are mounting as the Olympic torch begins the second half of its trip round Chinato Beijing.
China’s Visa Policy Threatens Olympics Tourism
(The New York Times, 24 Jun 2008)
With the Beijing Olympics less than two months away, hotel operators, travel agencies, and foreign businessmen say new Chinese visa restrictions are proving bad for business, casting a pall over Beijing during what was supposed to be a busy and jubilant tourist season leading up to the Olympic Games. Chinese authorities acknowledged putting new visa restrictions in place in May — after foreign embassies reported fewer visas being granted and tighter, sometimes seemingly arbitrary, restrictions.
Getting this off my chest about the Olympics
(The Atlantic, 23 Jun 2008)
I’m puzzled by a series of deliberate and inadvertent decisions that, if you didn’t know better, you might think were designed to turn the whole spectacle into a source of friction rather than pride for China. None of these steps is news on its own. Collectively the pattern is discouraging, and puzzling too.
For China's Olympic guests, a not-so-warm welcome
(The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Jun 2008)
Fearful of terrorist attacks and of embarrassing protests, the authorities are draping a security blanket over Beijing so thick that many residents fear it will stifle the Games. "They are not taking any chances, whatever the impact on ordinary people, either local or foreign," says Gilbert van Kerckhove, a longtime Beijing resident who is advising the city on Olympic issues. "They are totally paranoid; there is no other word for it."
Beijing gets ground-to-air defense
(Associated Press, 25 Jun 2008)
China has stationed a battery of ground-to-air missiles just 300 yards from a Beijing Olympic venue, the latest sign of tightening security with the games just 6 1/2 weeks away. The fenced-off military compound has been set up just south of the Olympic Sports Center Stadium, a venue for soccer and modern pentathlon. It's also within a half mile of the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest National Stadium, the $450 million showpiece venue of the games.
Fahey backs China to nab Olympic cheats
(The Age, 25 Jun 2008)
Drug cheats have more chance of being caught at the Beijing Games than at any previous Olympics, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president John Fahey says.
China's Hu says Olympics preparations in "final dash"
(Reuters, 26 Jun 2008)
Chinese President Hu Jintao has said preparations for the Beijing Olympics have entered their "final dash" and urged officials to ensure roads, train stations and airports are ready for a torrent of visitors.
China announces Olympics drugs crackdown
(Associated Press, 26 Jun 2008)
China plans to crack down on illegal drugs in Beijing and other cities that will host Olympic events, a top police official said Wednesday. Authorities will target drug use at nightclubs and other entertainment venues, as well as smugglers supplying major cities, said Yang Fengrui, director of the Bureau of Narcotics Control under the Public Security Ministry.
Rising Peacefully or Just Rising?
(Taiwan Review, 30 Jun 2008)
In recent years, Chinese leaders have sought to portray their nation as a "soft power." The country's growing influence should be embraced not feared, they say, contending that the nation's economic clout can be shared among countries in the region and act as a force for stability and harmony.
China scurries to quell social tensions before Olympics
(McClatchy Newspapers, 30 Jun 2008)
Senior leaders exhorted local officials to deal more quickly with festering social tensions that might tarnish the upcoming Olympics as censors tried to snuff out all news about a weekend riot in southern China.
Olympics: Chinese swimmer banned for drugs
(The Daily Telegraph, 28 Jun 2008)
The British Olympic Association yesterday issued a stern warning to British athletes and team officials "to eat within the confines of Team GB official catering facilities" in Beijing. The advice comes in the wake of a Chinese swimming medal prospect having been banned for life after testing positive for a steroid that he may have ingested innocently with his dinner.
China announces Olympics stability drive after riot
(Reuters, 30 Jun 2008)
China has launched a nationwide campaign to defuse protest ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, state media reported on Monday, days after a riot in the country's southwest highlighted volatile social strains.
Beijing starts subway security blitz for Games
(The Guardian, 29 Jun 2008)
More than 3,000 inspectors at 93 stations began random searches of passengers' bags for dangerous articles, "including guns, ammunition, knives, explosives, flammable and radioactive materials, and toxic chemicals," Xinhua news agency quoted Beijing Subway Operation Company spokesman Jia Peng as saying. Stations had also begun operating specially installed x-ray machines to scan larger bags and would make use of specially trained dogs for inspections, Xinhua said.
China’s Inside Game
(The New York Times, 2 Jul 2008)
What the International Olympic Committee and the rest of the world don’t realize is how little China cares what they think. Here in Beijing, the Olympic Games are primarily for domestic consumption, justifying the government’s new global power to its own people.
Bush eases equipment export ban for China Olympics
(Reuters, 1 Jul 2008)
U.S. weapons restrictions meant to keep firearms and other equipment out of China were eased on Monday so that athletes and television crews can use them during the Beijing Olympic Games.
Sarkozy not welcome at Olympics - poll
(The Australian, 2 Jul 2008)
NEARLY 90 per cent of Chinese respondents to an online survey said they oppose French President Nicolas Sarkozy's attendance at the Beijing Olympics, results showed today. The poll, conducted by internet portal sina.com, was in response to Mr Sarkozy's threat to boycott the Games' opening ceremonies.
Summer Olympics Disaster Guide
(Slate.com, 2 Jul 2008)
Toxic air, algae blooms, Tibetan uprisings—welcome to the 2008 Summer Olympics! As the Aug. 8 opening ceremony inches closer, the list of potential disasters gets longer every day. Below, we've collected all of the crises and glitches that might spoil the Beijing games.
China Bars Wrestler After Drug Test
(The New York Times, 3 Jul 2008)
For the second time in less than a week, Chinese authorities announced that one of their Olympic athletes had tested positive for a banned substance and was subsequently barred from his sport for life. The wrestler Luo Meng tested positive for a diuretic, a drug that could be used to rid the body of performance-enhancing substances, Chinese antidoping officials said Wednesday.
A Side Competition in Beijing: Island vs. Mainland
(The New York Times, 7 Jul 2008)
As Taiwan’s athletes prepare for the Olympics, its officials fear that China will use the Games for political purposes.
Beijing Olympics 2008: China tells bar girls to cover up
(The Daily Telegraph, 3 Jul 2008)
Strict new regulations, posted today on the Ministry of Public Security's website, are intended to help fight prostitution and drug use. They state that entertainment venues must have glass windows in the private rooms at clubs "to show the whole area" - and doors must stay unlocked. All staff at such venues should dress "tastefully" and should not be too exposed, the rules said.
China to use unmanned security drones at Olympics
(AP, 5 Jul 2008)
China plans to use unmanned security drones to patrol the skies over the Olympic sailing venue of Qingdao, state media reported Friday. The drones were tested for the first time during a drill Wednesday in Jinan, the capital of eastern Shandong province.
China will hold Olympics on its own terms
(Sports Illustrated, 6 Jul 2008)
China is ready to stage the most elaborate games, and it has left little to chance in a coming out party worthy of a superpower. The opening ceremony will surely dazzle, buses will run on time and there is about as much chance of Sweden winning the medal count as there is of a television camera catching any protester within a mile of Tiananmen Square.
Nation whose time has come
(The Australian, 6 Jul 2008)
After the tumult of the 15 days of Olympic competition and festivities in Beijing in August has died down, China will still be left with the three-year task of rebuilding from the ruins of the Sichuan earthquake and the even more demanding task of running its steaming economy and delivering increasing living standards for its 1.3 billion people. But, one way or another, it's likely the Australia-China relationship will become more interwoven in the proces
‘Anti-China’ groups threaten Olympics
(Financial Times, 5 Jul 2008)
A top Chinese security official has warned that “anti-China” forces and other hostile groups are intensifying efforts to sabotage next month’s Beijing Olympics. It is also likely to further spur sweeping security measures in Beijing and other Olympic cities that some observers say could cast a chill over Games events.
China warns of Olympics unrest
(Reuters, 5 Jul 2008)
The Olympics are threatened by sabotage and unrest, a senior Chinese security official said in remarks reported on Friday, as authorities sacked officials after a riot in which a police headquarters was set ablaze. The trouble in Guizhou province in the southwest on Saturday erupted despite China's determination to quell any signs of unrest ahead of next month's Games in Beijing.
The Chinese view: If you can hold an Olympics, you rule
(Star Tribune, 5 Jul 2008)
The Olympics games are really more about cementing power in the homeland than about impressing the world. In Beijing, the Olympic Games are primarily for domestic consumption, justifying the government's new global power to its own people.
Is China ready for the Olympics?
(BBC News, 6 Jul 2008)
In the swish surroundings of the former US embassy in Beijing, the medals for this summer's Olympic Games were recently unveiled...But while venues and transport facilities seem ready, there are doubts about some other Olympic plans - not least as regards Beijing's poor air quality.
Bush defends decision to attend Olympics
(USA Today, 6 Jul 2008)
President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month, saying that skipping the event "would be an affront to the Chinese people."
Bush's Olympic Doctrine
(The Huffington Post, 6 Jul 2008)
President Bush defended his decision to attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. "The Chinese people are watching very carefully about the decisions by world leaders and I happen to believe that not going to the opening ceremony for the games would be an affront to the Chinese people, which may make it more difficult to be able to speak frankly with the Chinese leadership," the president said as he outlined the official justification for what might be termed Bush's Olympic Doctrine.
Can the Olympics be a catalyst for change in China
(Sporting Life, 8 Jul 2008)
Unlike, Athens, Sydney and Atlanta, the pages of history will not judge the Beijing Olympics on the merits of the Games, nor the thrills of its contests, nor even the number of world records that are broken. Instead, in years to come, the judgment will be whether bringing the Olympics to China had any positive effect in relaxing the iron grip of the totalitarian rulers.
Hu thanks Bush for Olympics visit
(AFP, 9 Jul 2008)
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday thanked US President George W. Bush, who has announced he will attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, for not "politicizing" the Games. Hu said through an interpreter that he "highly appreciated that President Bush has on various occasions expressed his opposition to politicizing the Olympic Games."
Limbering up for the games
(The Economist, 19 Jun 2008)
No one dismisses the security concerns. With the ever-present threat of terrorism and a number of foreign leaders, among them George Bush, expected to attend the games' opening ceremony, China has no choice but to take security seriously. But the clampdown now under way suggests the government is just as concerned about preventing anything -- from political demonstrations to unsightly beggar -- that reflects poorly on it, however slightly. The risk is that heavy-handed precautions will take the fun out of what is supposed, after all, to be a sporting event.
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Beijing's Olympics Public Relations
(ChinaStakes, 10 Jul 2008)
When Beijing was awarded the host of the 2008 Olympics on July 13, 2001, the joyful Chinese didn’t expect that their road to the summer of 2008 would be so bumpy. This summer game has been politicized from very beginning.
China warns of Muslim terrorist threat ahead of Olympics
(AFP, 9 Jul 2008)
China insisted on Thursday it faced a serious terror threat in its Muslim-majority far northwest ahead of the Olympics, as it announced 82 "suspected terrorists" had been detained there this year.The 82 belonged to five groups that "allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics," the official Xinhua news agency reported.
China: Uighurs plotted 'holy war'
(Al Jazeera English, 10 Jul 2008)
Five ethnic Uighur men shot and killed in a police raid in China's western Xinjiang province were part of a group plotting a "holy war", Chinese state media has said, less than a month before the Beijing Olympics open. The five were killed in a raid on Tuesday in an apartment in the city of Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital.
Police shoot dead five members of 'Chinese al-Qaeda'
(The Times, 9 Jul 2008)
With less than a month to go before the Olympics open in Beijing, Chinese police have shot dead five members of a Muslim ethnic minority they said were bent on waging holy war inspired by al-Qaeda and setting up an independent state.
Security top priority for successful Olympics, says China VP
(The Guardian, 9 Jul 2008)
Security is the single most important factor in hosting a successful Olympics, China's Vice President Xi Jinping told a "mobilisation" rally on Wednesday, 30 days before the Beijing Games open. China, eager to use the Games to showcase its rise as a modern economic power, has already instituted a raft of security measures. A 100,000 strong anti-terrorism force is in place, surface-to-air missiles have been deployed around the major venues and bag searches are conducted on the subway. From next week, hundreds of armed police checkpoints will be set up the edge of Beijing to prevent "dangerous materials and people" getting into the Olympic host city, the municipal public security bureau said in a statement on Wednesday.
Phone Call From China Transformed ’84 Games
(The New York Times, 15 Jul 2008)
As the world prepares for the Beijing Games in August, the moment when China defied the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles games stands as the moment when the winds shifted and carried the Games away from a political bludgeon in the cold war to the combination of athletic and commercial success they have become since. Now, no matter what political issues arise — and with China there are many: human rights, Tibet, its relationship with the government of Sudan — large-scale national boycotts of the Games are no longer part of the discussion. Political statements come in smaller forms: which heads of state will attend or stay home, whether athletes will speak out about their political views.
Sports Fan Rice to be at Olympics Closing Ceremony
(Reuters, 10 Jul 2008)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes to watch some of the competition in the final days of Beijing's Olympic Games before attending the closing ceremony next month, her spokesman said on Thursday.
Olympics are for Sport, not Politics
(American Public Media: Marketplace, 10 Jul 2008)
While many are tempted to use the Olympic Games as an opportunity to criticize China's human rights record, commentator Ilya Shapiro says it's time to take the politics out of this sporting event.
A Jittery China Awaits the Olympics
(International Herald Tribune, 10 Jul 2008)
Alongside stunning sports venues, new subway lines and floral displays, Beijing is rolling out restrictive measures dampening any festive feeling ahead of the Aug. 8-24 games. "It's like they're getting ready to throw a great party and then trying to restrain the partygoers," said Bob Dietz of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, who couldn't get a visa despite 20 years of travel to China. "They're not ready to welcome the world."
As Olympics Protests Mount, China Blasts its Foreign Critics
(McClatchy, 15 Apr 2008)
China is lashing back at its foreign critics -- by name. A mood of angry nationalism has spurred government officials to lash out at foreign critics, trying to stay ahead of public resentment -- even fury -- that foreigners may spoil the Summer Olympics party with what some see as unwarranted criticism.
China Says 82 People Detained in Olympic Plots
(AP, 10 Jul 2008)
China has detained 82 suspected terrorists in the first half of the year on allegations that they were plotting attacks against next month's Olympics, according to state media reports Thursday.
Olympic Undesirables Expelled From Beijing
(The Age, 13 Jul 2008)
Ms Pemba, a Tibetan by ethnicity, stepped out of her Beijing flat on Tuesday morning and headed for her English-teaching job at a private school. She was surrounded by about eight security agents and within 15 hours was back in London, banned from returning to China for five years. Beggars, the homeless, prostitutes, activists, and anyone who might challenge Beijing's efforts to present itself as a modern, sophisticated metropolis are being forced to leave, or denied re-entry.
Strange Olympic Bedfellows
(Toronto Star, 14 Jul 2008)
The United States has been cautious with its criticism of China. The reason is largely financial. Economic ties between the countries runs deep. China relies on the U.S. as its largest export market, just as the U.S. relies on China to fuel its outrageous consumption with cheap imports.
World Will Not Allow Olympics to be Politicized
(Xinhua, 15 Jul 2008)
The Beijing Olympic Games is not just a grand gathering of the 1.3 billion Chinese people, but also a gathering of all the peace-loving people around the world, it will propagate valuable virtues such as peace, friendship and cooperation. To politicize such a grand and happy ceremony will only hurt the feelings of all the peace-lovers, including the Chinese people, and tarnish the spirit of the Olympics. That is why rejecting the politicizing of the Olympics has always been the mainstream ideal in the international community.
America and China: The Eagle and the Dragon Part Four: Higher, Faster, Stronger
(The Daily Telegraph, 17 Jul 2008)
China has a lot invested in the Olympic Games - and not only the $20 billion that has been spent on building the new sports stadiums, airport terminals, subways and other facilities that will serve the city in the long term. More significantly, it has the investment of national pride: $20 billion is roughly the same amount that, 40 years ago, the US spent on putting the first man on the moon - a demonstration to the world of the primacy of America and the capitalist way. The Beijing Olympics might be seen as China's moon-shot - the showpiece of the nation's emergence as a global power.
China: Local Leaders Must Manage Complaints Better
(AP, 16 Jul 2008)
China has told local government leaders to be more responsive to people's complaints after several rural protests threatened to disturb the calm run-up to next month's Olympic Games, a government notice said Wednesday.
Olympic Checkpoints Cause Huge Jams Outside Beijing
(Monsters and Critics, 16 Jul 2008)
The opening of Olympic security checkpoints on major roads leading into Beijing has caused long traffic jams and forced some drivers to sit in stationary vehicles for up to two hours. The checks are part of a growing list of security measures introduced in recent weeks, including the deployment of anti-aircraft missiles near the Olympic Green.
Missiles, 100K police on China's Olympic Team
(USA Today, 15 Jul 2008)
China is mobilizing an anti-terrorism force of 100,000 to protect next month's Olympic Games that includes SWAT teams on Segways and officers who can shoot nets like Spider-Man at suspects.
China Asks Japan for Information
(Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 18 Jul 2008)
Chinese security has asked for information on Japan-based members of spiritual group Falun Gong, ahead of the Beijing Olympics. But the group isn't banned in Japan, and the Japanese government has refused the request.
China Moves to Quell Violence Before Games
(The Australian, 18 Jul 2008)
Responding to a new wave of unrest ahead of the Olympics, China's communist leadership has told local leaders to address public grievances in order to head off protests that threaten the country's social stability.
Big Brother Versus YouTube: Let the Beijing Games Commence
(The Spectator (via istockanalsyt.com), 19 Jul 2008)
With the Olympic Games, Chinese strategists have moved from seeking invisibility to actively trying to shape their country's image through a mixture of charm and steel.
China`s Impossible Dream
(Business Stadard, 19 Jul 2008)
Beijing struggles to make its coming-of-age Olympics party perfect despite controversies, unsold tickets and media hyperventilation. Beijing struggles to make its coming-of-age Olympics party perfect despite controversies, unsold tickets and media hyperventilation. But China is leaving these dampeners behind as it edges towards the stunning opening ceremony.
China Opens New Subway Lines for Olympics
(Business Standard, 19 Jul 2008)
Beijing today opened three new subway lines in a bid to reduce traffic on the city's streets and improve air quality ahead of the Olympics.
Marching to Beijing's Olympic Beat
(The Vancouver Sun, 19 Jul 2008)
"The Olympics are all about politics and the athletes are part of it," says Kevin Wamsley, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies. This August more than 80 world leaders and athletes from 205 countries will be in the parade in Beijing validating, if not embracing, China and its leadership. It's a mark of how successful the IOC has been at selling its brand and "Olympism." "People seem to have a need to hang on to the pureness [of the Olympics] because it provides them with hope ." Wamsley says.
For Games, China Playing to Gallery
(Chicago Tribune, 20 Jul 2008)
The top prize for Beijing is the world's respect. Beijing's outsize preparations capture just how important the Olympics are to China's sense of itself and its place in the world—a Columbian Exposition for a new century and a new superpower.
Guess Who's not Invited to the Olympics?
(Reuters, 20 Jul 2008)
You won't find Tibet's exiled spiritual leader on the Beijing Olympics guest list. The Dalai Lama's appearance could have helped repair China's international image. "It's supposed to be Hu Jintao's Olympics, but it'll become the Dalai Lama's Olympics if he attends," a source familiar with government policy said requesting anonymity.
Beijing Olympics: Battle for Gold Offers China First Chance to 'Defeat' America
(The Daily Telegraph, 21 Jul 2008)
The Olympic host is straining every sinew to dislodge the US from the top of the medals table, a badge of global superpower status.
Hong Kong's Olympic Kowtow
(The Wall Street Journal, 21 Jul 2008)
To ensure a successful Olympics, China has cracked down on all manner of free speech and association. Now, Hong Kong is following the mainland's lead.
China Takes Dog Off Menus, Grounds Model Planes for Olympics
(Bloomberg, 20 Jul 2008)
Beijing's investment in security may be 50 percent more than Athens spent in 2004. In addition to the traditional safety risks any Olympic host faces, China is also preparing for potential domestic dissent and political protests.
Gaming the China Model
(Council on Foreign Relations, 7 Aug 2008)
For all the high-minded invocations of the Olympic spirit, no one should doubt that the Beijing games will be as powerful a marketing campaign for China's authoritarian capitalist model (Foreign Affairs) as any devised by Madison Avenue. This isn't new. From the inception of the modern Olympics, governments have strained every national muscle to turn the supposedly apolitical games into showcases for national, ideological, or even racial superiority.
"Great Wall of Steel" Tightens Around Beijing
(Monsters and Critics, 22 Jul 2008)
China has tried to cover every angle in minimizing the threat of a terrorist attack or other breach of security at the Olympics. It has enlisted the help of Interpol, the FBI, organizers of the previous two Olympics in Athens and Sydney, and even the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear materials.
China’s Unreality TV
(The New York Times, 22 Jul 2008)
To win the right to host the Games, Beijing promised to expand press freedoms for foreign reporters and implied that opening China to the world would help expand human rights more generally. We will never know whether China’s leaders intended to keep their word. What we do know is that the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and governments around the world should have held China to its word. They have not, and China has read their silence as complicity.
Olympics: Chinese Think Games Will Help Image
(San Francisco Chronicle, 23 Jul 2008)
Overwhelming numbers of Chinese say next month's Olympics will help their country's tattered image abroad, and they predict the Beijing Games will be successful, according to a poll released Tuesday.
China Plans Olympic Protest Zones
(Al Jazeera English, 23 Jul 2008)
Chinese authorities are planning to establish specially designated areas for protesters at next month's Olympic Games, according to security officials.
China Denies Work Visa for Los Gatos Olympian; Political Motive Suspected
(The Mercury News, 23 Jul 2008)
Kendra Zanotto was set to work as an expert synchronized swimming reporter for the Olympic News Service, an official arm of the Beijing Games. But she says her visa application was refused Monday because of her affiliation with Team Darfur, an athlete-driven group that seeks to call attention to the crisis in western Sudan.
Taiwan Opposes Chinese Attempt to Change Island's Name for Olympics
(International Herald Tribune, 25 Jul 2008)
A dispute simmering between Taiwan and China over what the island's Olympics team will be called at the upcoming games showed signs of abating Friday after an official Chinese news agency dropped a controversial reference to the team.
The Hidden Cost Behind China’s Olympic Gold
(Epoch Times, 24 Jul 2008)
Many Chinese sports fans may not have considered how a country (China) that is ranked around 100th in the world for GDP per person can win over the U.S.—ranking in the top 10 countries for GDP—to become the top sports nation in gold metal totals. Especially for a country that still has more than 200 million living below the poverty line, some believe China’s anticipated high medal ranking represents a poor allocation of resources.
China Clamps Down on Business Visas
(AP, 24 Jul 2008)
Government officials confirmed Thursday that visas for business people will be tougher to get during the Olympic period. Authorities have repeatedly said the security measures are needed because the games, which begin in two weeks, are a target for terrorism.
Rice Says China Must Not Use Olympics to Squash Dissent
(The Guardian, 26 Jul 2008)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged China on Saturday not to use security concerns over next month's Olympics as a cover to crush political dissent.
Fun May be a Casualty of Beijing's Effort for a Perfect Olympic Games
(Los Angeles Times, 26 Jul 2008)
Fearful of political protests or terrorist attacks, Beijing feels increasingly battened down as the Aug. 8 opening ceremony approaches, leading some wags to predict a "fun-free" or "killjoy" Games.
Group Threatens Olympics Attack, Claims Bombed Buses
(The Guardian, 25 Jul 2008)
A group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for recent deadly explosions on two Chinese buses, a terrorism monitoring firm said on Friday.
China’s Agony of Defeat
(Newsweek, 26 Jul 2008)
It's impossible to understand what the Games mean to the Chinese without understanding their history of humiliation.
China Dissidents Hope Olympics Not Like Berlin Games
(The Guardian, 28 Jul 2008)
One of China's leading dissidents, Chen Ziming, hopes the Beijing Olympics will be like the Seoul Games in 1988 and lead to political reform and not like the Nazi propaganda-driven Berlin Olympics of 1936.
Wary China Readies for Some Patriot Games
(The Guardian, 28 Jul 2008)
With the streets awash with pride and excitement the communist authorities are trying hard to keep a lid on rising nationalism and a firm grip on potential 'troublemakers'
An Olympic Dream
(Star Tribune, 27 Jul 2008)
For the Chinese, the Games take on extra significance. There is a palpable sense of pride here that a country that could barely feed itself 25 years ago has accomplished so much in so little time. Yet that pride comes with a hard edge. China is like an adolescent aching to sit at the grown-ups' table. The Chinese see the Olympics as a triumph over centuries of exploitation and domination at the hands of Western imperialists and Japanese aggressors.
China Party Pundit Spies Battle Outside Games Arena
(The Guardian, 29 Jul 2008)
Sima Nan a Chinese television pundit, blogger and Communist Party defender -- sees dark forces within China seeking to ruin the Party. The crew-cut 52-year-old has been waging an Internet war against Chinese commentators and intellectuals he says have hijacked this year's national dramas to undermine Communist Party rule and patriotic values.
China Accused of Inflating Terror Threat
(Financial Times, 29 Jul 2008)
After a series of explosions and other potential security threats, Beijing is mounting one of the biggest-ever security operations for the games. In spite of the flurry of recent incidents, Beijing has been accused of exaggerating risks, in part by lumping together ETIM with other groups, some of which have no history of violence.
Professor Examines China's Olympic Dreams in New Book
(Kalamazoo Gazette, 28 Jul 2008)
Kalamazoo College professor, Xu Guoqi, an associate professor of history and East Asian affairs, notes in his new book "Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008," that "the Chinese have suffered the syndrome of can-do spirit and inferiority."
Olympic Pollution Controls Cost Chinese Industry
(Forbes, 29 Jul 2008)
Factory shutdowns and other industrial restrictions intended to help reduce Beijing's eye-searing smog for the Olympics are making business more complicated - and costly - for Chinese providers of steel, pharmaceuticals and other goods and services.
What Do You Think of China as Olympic Host?
(Globe and Mail, 30 Jul 2008)
This selection of intellectual guests present their perspectives on the subject of China hosting of the Olympic Games. Contributors include: Clifford Orwin, Margaret MacMillan, Camilla Gibb, Brian Flemming is in Halifax, Michael Higgins, Irshad Manji, Antonia Maioni, John Duffy, John Polanyi, Mark Kingwell, Marcus Gee, Margaret Wente, Lorna Dueck, and Preston Manning,
Olympics May Mean Change for China
(The London Free Press, 31 Jul 2008)
If China can pull off a successful Olympics, open itself to the rest of us and introduce its people to the world, change will be inevitable. It's hard to imagine that won't benefit everyone.
City's Signs Suggest a House Divided
(Chicago Tribune, 1 Aug 2008)
Two very different messages written on the walls of Kashgar capture why China's regime is watching this distant outpost with particular interest in the final days before the Beijing Olympics, scheduled to start Aug. 8.
Will The Olympics Change China?
(Voice of America, 1 Aug 2008)
A recent poll from the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 93 percent of Chinese think the Olympics will improve their country's international image. But Bruce Stokes, a columnist with the National Journal who worked on the survey, says national pride is so high in China that any disruption to the games could easily generate resentment against the West.
China’s Dash for Freedom
(The Economist, 31 Jul 2008)
On balance, the award of the games has done more harm than good to the opening up of China. The big forces driving China's opening are independent of the games. One is the speed with which China globalised in the 1980s and 1990s and then accelerated to a breakneck pace after accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. The other is the spread of the internet and mobile telephony that have transformed society. The Olympics, by contrast, have seen the Communist Party reassert an authoritarian grip over Beijing.
For Many Expatriates, Olympics Signal China’s Arrival
(The New York Times, 10 Aug 2008)
As mainland Chinese greeted the Beijing Olympics with exuberant pride, so, too, have Chinese-Americans, who have often been divided over how to deal with the Communists or the future of Taiwan, but who share a sense that China has taken a long-awaited place on the world stage.
China Casts Off a Century of Shame
(The Daily Telegraph, 2 Aug 2008)
The Games are nothing short of a sacred ritual for this atheist state, and it is hard to exaggerate the enthusiasm. When the organisers advertised for volunteers to deal with baffled foreigners unused to local ways, a million people applied. Most of the 100,000 selected came from universities around the country, and have trained eight hours a day for two weeks.
China Warns Protesters, Allows Tiananmen Music
(Reuters, 3 Aug 2008)
China allowed a first foreign orchestra concert in Tiananmen Square on Sunday but also issued warnings to would-be protesters in delicate efforts to show openness while avoiding embarrassment at the Olympics.
Two Chinese Dissidents Back in Taipei from Hong Kong
(Monsters and Critics, 2 Aug 2008)
Two overseas-based Chinese dissidents who flew to Hong Kong Saturday to try to protest China's holding the Beijing Olympic Games were denied entry and deported to Taipei Saturday night, press reports said Sunday.
16 Chinese Police Officers Killed
(The Globe and Mail, 4 Aug 2008)
With the Olympics just four days away, China has been hit with a violent attack that killed 16 police officers in its troubled Muslim region of Xinjiang, one of the bloodiest assaults on Chinese authorities in many years. The attack is likely to escalate tensions that are already running high on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. China has mobilized an anti-terrorism force of 100,000 soldiers and police, along with a battery of surface-to-air missiles, to protect the Olympic Games from terrorist attacks.
As China Girds for Olympics, New Violence
(Herald Tribune (Florida), 4 Aug 2008)
Chinese officials have thrown an almost smothering blanket of security across this capital of 17 million in preparation for the start of the Olympic Games on Friday. Above all else, Chinese leaders say, these Olympics will be “safe.” Even civilians have been called on to strengthen the motherland: Tens of thousands of middle-age and elderly residents wearing red armbands, reminiscent of the zealous Red Guard youth from decades ago, now patrol neighborhoods looking for even a slightly suspicious act or person.
China Bid for Supremacy Revives East-West Duel
(Reuters, 4 Aug 2008)
The United States and the former Soviet Union, now fragmented since the end of the Cold War, have between them ruled the roost in every Olympics since the first post-World War Two Games in London in 1948. In 1996 and 2000, the Americans beat the Russians in the final tables but Athens saw a geo-political shift, with China finishing second overall with 32 golds to the U.S. team's 36. They had been third in 2000, fourth in 1996 and 1992. Four years on from Athens, China has spared no expense in the final push to the summit.
For Chinese, It’s the Teflon Olympics
(The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Games have been dogged with global criticism on everything from censorship to pollution. But Chinese people still see them as their government does: a great coming-out party.
China Promises Safe, Peaceful Olympics
(VOA, 5 Aug 2008)
China is promising a safe and peaceful Summer Olympics, despite a deadly attack on police officers in the country's northwest.
China's Iron Hand
(The Arizona Republic, 5 Aug 2008)
Instead of the Olympics serving as a means for China to clean up its human-rights act, it is using the excuse of the Games to clamp down even further. And, instead, to paint on that veneer of excitement and joy.
Getting in Shape for Games, China Strengthens Ties With Neighbors
(The New York Times, 5 Aug 2008)
After two years of intensive and often secretive overtures, Taiwan and Japan, two neighbors long viewed as the most likely to face a military threat from a rising China have been drawn closer into its orbit. Improved relations have not only reduced the chances of a flare-up that could disrupt China’s turn as an Olympic host, but also helped showcase China’s frequent claims to be a new kind of global power that intends to rise on the world stage without engaging in military conflict.
China Clears Streets for the Olympics
(Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug 2008)
As part of its bid to host the Olympics, China promised to improve its human rights record. Last month, the government announced that it would go so far as to designate space in city parks where protesters could exercise free speech. But such pledges come at the same time as the unprecedented crackdown in the streets. Along with beggars and pickpockets, the petitioners appear to top the list of the personae non gratae whom Beijing wants out before Friday. The petitioners are living in the streets largely because the Chinese government, citing concerns over Olympic security, has in recent weeks closed down thousands of cheap hotels and basement apartments where rooms could be rented for less than $1 a day. The government has also demolished housing in entire neighborhoods where petitioners have lived.
Beijing Under Wraps
(The New York Times, 4 Aug 2008)
Even as China projects a new air of openness and tolerance as it rolls out the welcome mat for Olympics visitors, the government is cracking down on citizens. Last week, Chinese officials ordered copies of The Beijing News removed from newsstands and censored the newspaper’s Web site after it published a photograph of victims wounded during the 1989 democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. The authorities have barred distribution of the English version of Time Out Beijing, a magazine for which I write, for the past two months. A good friend who is an American professor had valuable political texts in Chinese seized when he arrived at Beijing’s airport. And a shipment of my recently published food memoir, which I intended to distribute to friends, was detained and sent back to the United States by Chinese customs officials, who explained that my books were not “approved materials.”
Ambush in China Raises Concerns as Olympics Near
(The New York Times, 5 Aug 2008)
Two men armed with knives and explosives ambushed a military police unit in China’s majority Muslim northwest on Monday. State media reported the attackers killed 16 officers and wounded 16 others, likely making it the deadliest outburst of ethnic violence in China since at least the early 1990s.
China’s Gold Rush
(The New York Times, 5 Aug 2008)
Like the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war, China is looking to make a statement by winning more Summer Olympic gold medals than the United States. Unlike in the Soviet Union, capitalism has infiltrated nearly all aspects of Chinese life -- except sports. Chinese compete like Adam Smith in the marketplace but like Vladimir Lenin in the arena.
Foreigners Protest for Tibetan Independence in Beijing
(Deutsche Welle, 6 Aug 2008)
Two days ahead of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, China seems to have reneged on its pledge to honor freedom of expression after the arrest of demonstrators and the unexplained revocation of visas.
Clandestine Olympic protests
(BBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
In the world of the Olympic protester, those people who have come to Beijing to voice their complaints about the Chinese government, cloak-and-dagger publicity stunts days before the start of the Games are one way to get their message out.
Chinese Bent on Sporting Supremacy
(The Toronto Star, 6 Aug 2008)
China's considerable history has been shaped by no end of ambitious national projects. This month the world will begin to comprehend the import and outcome of Project 119. It is, at its heart, a sporting endeavor. One hundred nineteen represented the number of gold medals available in track and field, swimming and the water-bound events such as canoing, rowing, sailing and kayaking at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. China won exactly one of those 119 golds in 2000 and ever since has been endeavoring to become the most athletically dominant nation.
China’s Leaders Are Resilient in Face of Change
(The New York Times, 6 Aug 2008)
If the Olympics have presented unmistakable challenges and crises, the Communist Party has proved resilient. Public appetite for reform has not waned, but the short-term byproduct of the Olympics has been a surge in Chinese patriotism that bolstered the party against international criticism after its crackdown on Tibetan protesters in March and the controversy over the international Olympic torch relay.
Flags, Protests and Surprising Restraint
(The Globe and Mail, 7 Aug 2008)
On the eve of the Olympics, the Chinese authorities have become enmeshed in a cloak-and-dagger game with an array of foreign protesters, detaining some activists while failing to block protests by others.
Chinese Man Kills Relative of U.S. Olympic Coach
(The New York Times, 9 Aug 2008)
A Chinese man wielding a knife attacked an American couple related to a United States Olympic volleyball coach on Saturday, killing the man and wounding his wife and their Chinese guide atop an ancient tower in central Beijing.
Who Is Going to Take Home the Gold?
(The Wall Street Journal, 9 Aug 2008)
The U.S. has dominated the medal count for the past three Summer Olympics. Most experts predict that rising China will clean up in Beijing, but a Wall Street Journal forecast differs.
The Beijing Games
(The Wall Street Journal, 9 Aug 2008)
China remains a tough dichotomy -- a reforming but powerful and authoritarian nation. For all that, it would be foolish to underestimate the good that could come from China opening itself as the host of a major and truly international event.
Terrorists Issue New Olympic Threat, US Analysts Say
(Monsters and Critics, 9 Aug 2008)
A little-known Islamic group has issued a new terrorist threat against the Beijing Olympics, US intelligence analysts said Friday.
Chinese Man 'Kills American Tourist'
(The Daily Telegraph, 10 Aug 2008)
An American tourist was stabbed to death and another injured when a Chinese man attacked them at a monument in Beijing today as the first full day of the Olympic Games began.
China's Medal Table Campaign Built on Sun Tzu's Theory and Sports School
(The Guardian, 9 Aug 2008)
The hosts hope to outdo the Americans by training youngsters to succeed where the US are traditionally weak, says Jonathan Watts.
Eight Dead After Bombings in Western China Mars Olympic Opening Weekend
(The Guardian, 11 Aug 2008)
Uighur separatists storm police station and lob explosives. Meanwhile, George Bush uses Beijing visit to promote religious freedom
China Designates Special 'Protest Zones'
(The Daily Telegraph, 10 Aug 2008)
For those who want to demonstrate but do not want to risk arrest and deportation, there is another, perfectly legal way to get heard at the Olympics - at three "designated protest zones" around the capital city. They are, however, a far cry from Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. For one, they are tucked away in hard-to reach suburbs, seven miles from the main Olympic stadium. And for another, the rules on exactly who can demonstrate, and what they can demonstrate about, are as strict and complex as any in China's Byzantine bureaucracy. Human rights activists have branded them as worthless "protest pens" and predict they are likely to stay empty for the duration of the Games.
Chinese Police Officers Stabbed To Death At Checkpoint
(The Guardian, 12 Aug 2008)
In an apparent attempt to draw attention from the Beijing Olympics, Uighur separatist militants have dramatically escalated the number and intensity of attacks since the start of last week.
Chicago 2016 Studies China's Security Plan as it Makes its Own
(Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug 2008)
Security is on parade at these Summer Games, from the 10-foot metal mesh fences around sporting venues to the scan-and-search stations at the entry to each venue. Yet all these visible measures, involving 100,000 security personnel and $2 billion in spending, failed to prevent tragedy Saturday when a lone assailant stabbed two Americans at a tourist site, killing one and seriously injuring another. The incident not only cast a pall over the start of the Games, but it raised the question of what, if anything, future host cities can do to prevent the unexpected attack.
Beijing Protest Zones Lie Empty
(Al Jazeera English, 13 Aug 2008)
So far there have been no reports of any legal protest in the zones, with those applying uniformly rejected or detained. The protest zones are a "masquerade," says Nicholas Bequelin, a Human Rights Watch spokesperson based in Hong Kong. "The police are either turning people down or arresting those who try."
House Churches Barred From Holding Services Over Olympics Period
(Christian Today, 15 Aug 2008)
A number of house church leaders in China have been forced to sign a written agreement declaring that they will not hold services whilst the Olympic Games take place in Beijing.
China Praises Gold Haul as Sign of Its Rise
(Reuters, 15 Aug 2008)
A haul of Olympic gold by China and other Asian nations shows their growing strength in and out of the sports arena, and Western powers should prepare for more such challenges, Chinese official media said on Thursday.
Olympics Limit China Iron Ore, Coal Output in July
(The Economic Times, 15 Aug 2008)
Iron ore production in China dropped 22 per cent to 63.74 million tonnes in July from a month earlier while raw coal output fell almost 8 per cent month on month due to strict controls on explosives in the run-up to the Olympics.
Hot Summer, Olympics, Slow Pork Consumption Amid Industry Expansion
(CattleNetwork.com, 14 Aug 2008)
With hundreds of millions glued to home television sets and factory canteens running on low speed, the normal summer lows of pork consumption are being exacerbated by China’s hosting of the Olympic games.
Taiwan in Shock After Loss to China
(The Guardian, 16 Aug 2008)
The game was so important that Taiwan's baseball chief had offered to resign if his team, officially named "Chinese Taipei" because of political sensitivities with China, lost. Other heads could roll as well, he said ahead of the Olympics.
China Lifts Security Restrictions to Appease Advertisers
(The Daily Telegraph, 17 Aug 2008)
Beijing Olympics organisers were forced to lift draconian security arrangements after complaints from sponsors that the millions of pounds they had spent was going to waste in an empty and joyless Olympic park.
Happiness Can't Be Faked
(The Guardian, 18 Aug 2008)
The 2008 Olympics has created an illusion of China to the public and to the outside world. It is so fantastic, so unreal, that the entire meaning of the games is being distorted.
The Dark Story Behind China’s Gold Medals
(The Epoch Times, 19 Aug 2008)
Chinese athletes continue to take top honors in the Beijing Olympics, but it isn’t merely the product of talent and training. The Chinese communist regime is a driving force behind the country’s gold medal wins, and evidence reveals that the regime has used its totalitarian rule to divert vast amounts of the nation’s wealth, shown utter disregard for their athletes’ health and have relied heavily on steroid use in order to gain Olympic gold.
China's Sports Machine Mints Olympic Gold
(NPR, 19 Aug 2008)
The sheer range of events where China has won gold is remarkable — from weightlifting and judo and badminton, to diving and swimming. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, China won only five gold medals. This time it may win 10 times as many. The U.S. was the overall gold medal winner at the past three Summer Olympics. This time it will finish a very distant second to China.
China's Gold Medalists to Visit Hong Kong
(The Seatle Times, 22 Aug 2008)
Moving swiftly to capitalize on the success of Chinese athletes at the Olympics, China will send most of its gold medalists to Hong Kong next week, ahead of legislative elections Sept. 7.
China Eastern Passenger Numbers Plunge on Olympics
(Bloomberg, 23 Aug 2008)
China Eastern Airlines Corp., the country's third-largest carrier, said passenger numbers dropped for the fourth month in a row in July as restrictions put in place for the Beijing Olympics disrupted travel.
Beijing Full of Reminders That Old Ways Still Pock Mark China's New Face
(The Canadian Press, 24 Aug 2008)
To put on the Olympics, China used brute strength and appealed to nationalist sentiment in order to cast a spell that would change itself from beast into beauty. Edicts swept cars off the streets, outlawed spitting, provided scripts on how people should talk to foreigners, and rules about what they should wear. The spell worked not only on its people, but on the world, conjuring up a China that appeared modern, welcoming and eager to please. It couldn't, however, cover up all the ugly pock marks left by a communist regime that is so offensive to the West, but which the Chinese people incredibly just don't seem to mind.
Beijing Olympics Provide No Gold Yet for China Stock Market, China Stocks Close Down
(PR Web, 24 Aug 2008)
China Stocks closed down today going into the final week of the Beijing Olympics. China Stock Market Expert Jim Trippon expects a rally in Shanghai Stocks and Shenzhen Stocks after the games.
China Squelches Speech the Simple, Ancient Way
(Bloomberg, 23 Aug 2008)
In the run-up to the Olympics, Chinese officials invited people wanting to protest to come into government offices and fill out forms identifying themselves and listing their complaints against the government, the slogans they intend to use and any other people wishing to join them in dissent. China lured them by saying it would happily allow peaceful demonstrations during the Olympic Games for those who register ahead of time and confine their protests to certain parks. Of 77 people who signed up, none got permits. Worse, at least seven people who registered were detained, interrogated, charged, arrested or threatened with a year in a labor camp if they didn't keep quiet, according to human rights groups.
China Gives 6 American Protesters 10-Day Detentions
(The New York Times, 23 Aug 2008)
A group of six Americans who were taken into custody on Tuesday as they tried to protest China’s rule in Tibet have been given 10-day detentions, the Chinese police confirmed Friday.
China Rules in Gold; U.S. Leads Overall
(The Salt Lake Tribune, 25 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the event at which the massive host nation put on a great - if sometimes controversial - show and flexed its imposing sports muscle on an international stage. But the Americans did pretty well, too. That's the perspective of the U.S. Olympic Committee, anyway, which said it was thrilled at its record medal haul and dignified performance despite some high-profile failures in track, boxing, baseball and softball. The Americans are assured of winning at least 107 medals - not counting the presumptive gold in men's basketball - which tops the 102 they won four years ago at the Athens Games in Greece.
China Put on Great Show in Beijing, But With Iron Fist
(The Seattle Times, 25 Aug 2008)
China will put the finishing touches on the Beijing Olympics today with a closing ceremony that's expected to dazzle with performances much different from the opening.
Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
(The New York Times, 21 Aug 2008)
In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote. The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth. But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
China’s Rise Goes Beyond Gold Medals
(The New York Times, 21 Aug 2008)
China is on track to displace the United States as the winner of the most Olympic gold medals this year. Get used to it. Today, it’s the athletic surge that dazzles us, but China will leave a similar outsize footprint in the arts, in business, in science, in education.
Beijing’s Bad Faith Olympics
(The New York Times, 22 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympics still have one more day to run. But the final gold medal — for authoritarian image management — can already be safely awarded to China’s Communist Party leadership.
Going For The Gold
(The New York Times, 25 Aug 2008)
This Olympics, I’m ruefully told, was about the changing of the guard. It was the symbol of an emergent China and the waning of the West; the representation, in red shorts, swimsuits and tights, of a new order in sports. Yet for all its novelty, the new order seems little different from the old.
With Olympics Over, China's Self-Confidence Soars
(NPR, 25 Aug 2008)
"This is incredibly dramatic for a global perception of China, and also for China's self-perception [that] it can handle something on this scale," says historian Jonathan Spence of Yale University. "It's a kind of financial coming-of-age. It'll be an important marker, probably in a positive direction, as far as we can tell at the moment."
A Biblical Seven Years
(The New York Times, 26 Aug 2008)
Olympics don’t change history. They are mere snapshots — a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see. But, as snapshots go, the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful — and it’s one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season.
After Glow of Games, What Next for China?
(The New York Times, 24 Aug 2008)
The elaborate closing ceremony that ended the Olympic Games on Sunday also ended nearly a decade in which the ruling Communist Party had made the Games an organizing principle in national life. Almost nothing has superseded the Olympics as a political priority in China. The question now is whether a deepening self-confidence arising from the Olympic experience will lead China to further its engagement with the world and pursue deeper political reform, or whether the success of the Games and the muted Western response to repression will convince leaders that their current model is working.
Was China truly ready for the Olympics?
(AsiaNews.it, 24 Aug 2008)
For China the Olympic Games were the most important event of the last few decades, a showcase for its organisational capacities and proof of its athletes’ physical prowess as they triumphed in the medal count. It was a show that the government in Beijing wanted “free of politics” but which itself “politicised” first. Here is an analysis by Li Datong, a Chinese journalist fired for criticising censorship.
China's Olympic legacy
(Al Jazeera English, 25 Aug 2008)
After living and breathing the Olympics for seven years, for a while at least China will be able to bask in the games' success. "Post-Olympics China, at least in the first one or two years, will be marked with triumphant glory and renewed ambition," Professor Xu Wu, a former Xinhua reporter and now professor of journalism at Arizona State university, told Al Jazeera.
Hard-line China May Return
(Daily Yomiuri Online, 25 Aug 2008)
Experts predict Beijing will resume its hard-line stance on human rights and national security issues following the the conclusion of the Summer Games. Before and during the Olympics, China had to pay due heed to pressure from the international community over such issues. In this respect, observers say the country's future is unclear--not only in diplomatic terms, but also in the direction the economy and society is set to take.
Learn from the Chinese
(The Times of India, 26 Aug 2008)
In two years’ time, New Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games. The question of whether they will be ready is important. Sports shows are branding exercises. The world sits up and notices when you host a successful sporting event. The Beijing Olympics have been yet more evidence of China’s prowess as an economic power.
Olympic Torch Out; PetroChina Left With Pools Of Oil
(Forbes.com, 27 Aug 2008)
China stepped up refined oil shipments from abroad in May to bolster its stockpile for the Olympics, which ended Aug. 24, and in the process became a net gasoline/diesel importer for the first time. This importing spree is likely to end in the fall, as the close of the Summer Games spells surplus inventories of gasoline and diesel. A slackening of demand in the world’s second-biggest oil consumer may help ease upward pressure on global oil prices.
Will China Nurse an ‘Olympics Hangover’?
(Daily News and Analysis, 27 Aug 2008)
Virtually every country that has hosted an Olympics since the Second World War has seen its GDP growth fall in the year following the quadrennial event. This year too, as China’s economy shows signs of slowing down in response to a sharp slowdown in its principal export markets - the US and Europe - it appears that the ‘Olympics curse’ on the host nations will come true.
Rio Tinto Expects Post-Olympic Chinese Boom
(The Times Online, 27 Aug 2008)
Tom Albanese, chief executive of Rio Tinto, said: “We do not see a country-wide slowdown and expect the Chinese economy to pick up post-Olympics.”
With Beijing Olympics Finished, China Needs to Exemplify 'Harmony'
(Mainichi Daily News, 26 Aug 2008)
Now that the festivities have ended, how will China's rising nationalism be channeled? Throughout China, commodity prices are soaring, stock prices are declining, and clashes between citizens and police are growing more frequent. A stagnant economy will light a match to that society's dormant frustrations.
Olympic Metal Counts and Economics
(Financial Post, 27 Aug 2008)
Before the Beijing 2008 Games, some economists said they could use economic statistics to predict how well a country would do at the Olympics. Bloomberg has lined up data showing each nation's share of global domestic product, compared with that nation's medal count. By this measure, the U.S. certainly punched beneath its weight at the Olympics, while China was pretty much in line with expectations.
Guns and Gold of August
(Gulf News, 3 Sep 2008)
China and Russia have just provided the world with sharp contrasts in the use of power. As the French analyst Dominique Moisi recently put it, "whereas China intends to seduce and impress the world by the number of its Olympic medals, Russia wants to impress the world by demonstrating its military superiority - China's soft power versus Russia's hard power".
Olympic Splendour Offers Few Clues For Those Betting on China's Number Game
(The Times, 25 Aug 2008)
If staging the most extravagant Olympics in history was about persuading the world to sit up and gape at Beijing, it has probably worked. The great question - now that China has everyone's attention - is where to buy tickets for the second act. As the Olympic afterglow fades, the picture becomes far more obscure. China's vast and enticing economy is a bewildering labyrinth of numbers.
Chinese Nationalism
(Daily Yomiuri Online, 28 Aug 2008)
In an age in which the meaning of socialism seems to have lost much of its substance, the Olympics have, without a doubt, proved that nationalism can be used as a basis to unite the people as one country.
China’s Olympic Run – Part I
(YaleGlobal Online, 27 Aug 2008)
In the first article of the series, veteran correspondent Mary Kay Magistad explores the two-prong theme of the Beijing Olympics: For the global audience, Chinese leaders stressed global cooperation and peace. For the domestic audience, “It was about rallying the nation around a common cause, of earning international respect and admiration for China.” A population of more than 1 billion mobilizing around a common goal is a major accomplishment. The accomplishment will be even more impressive if China continues to direct full energy to resolving other challenges, both local and global, in peaceful ways.
China's Image
(The Heritage Foundation, 28 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Olympics are now part of history. The question is how they will be viewed. Olympic history has had some extraordinary highs and lows, and of course Chinese leaders would like the just concluded extravaganza to take its place among the soaring successes. The category in which China competed, that of major leading international nations and the gold medal prize, was "the respect of the world." When it comes to spin control, image crafting, and all of the arts of the PR business, the Chinese won hands down.
Protester's Mother Pays Price
(The Washington Post, 2 Sep 2008)
China quashed all applications from people hoping to demonstrate in officially sanctioned "protest pens." However, one Chinese man succeeded at protesting briefly in Ritan Park. Now, the family says, the man's 73-year-old mother is being harassed by the police in retaliation.
China’s Olympic Gold Medals Pay-Off
(The Hindu, 3 Sep 2008)
China made a sweep of the gold medal tally with 51 medals, but the cost of each of these has been revealed to be at least around 15.7 million yuan ($2.3 million) a year. This back-of-the-envelope calculation was arrived at by Sports Minister Liu Peng on the basis of the fact that the government invests some 800 million yuan ($117 million) annually on Olympics sports. It must be kept in mind, however, that this amount is then supplemented by a roughly equal figure raised through government-run sports lotteries.
China’s Olympic Facade a Victory For Totalitarianism
(The Badger Herald, 2 Sep 2008)
Beijing’s Olympic Games have left the world enamored with China. Yet corruption and shame blanketed its venues as thickly as the smog that will soon return to harry its inhabitants and visitors.
Olympics Generate Pro-China Buzz in Hong Kong Elections
(The Earth Times, 7 Sep 2008)
Voting was underway in Hong Kong's legislature elections Sunday with the "Olympics factor" expected to see pro-democracy parties lose ground to their China-friendly rivals.
Media - Local
IOC praises progress in media policy
(China Daily, 9 Apr 2008)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is generally satisfied with the preparatory work for the press done by the organizers of the Beijing Games, head of the IOC press commission Kevan Gosper said Tuesday.
China denies "media war" over coverage of Tibet
(China Daily, 2 Apr 2008)
Chinese officials on Wednesday denied a so-called "media war" over the March 14 riot in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, saying that the majority of foreign journalists were covering the issue fairly.
CNN, what's wrong with you?
(XinHua, 3 Apr 2008)
Some foreign media fabricated lots of reports on severe riots that took place in early March in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. The distorted reports triggered protests of netizens both at home and abroad. Netizens even established a website named anti-cnn.com that is aimed at opposing distorted reports from CNN, a well-known US news network.
CNN told to apologize for slander
(People's Daily, 17 Apr 2008)
Beijing yesterday demanded that CNN apologize for insulting remarks made by one of its commentators against China and the Chinese people.
Why some U.S. media going to such extreme?
(People's Daily, 3 Apr 2008)
Violence or such riots as beating, smashing, looting and arson erupted on March 14 in Lhasa, capital city of the Tibetan autonomous region, has become the focus of global attention. The Lhasa incident has not only torn down the mask of the Dalai Lama's non-violence but laid bare the intrinsic ideological bias of some American media.
Olympics boosts TV sales
(CCTV, 27 Jun 2008)
The coming Olympic Games will boost by 50 percent the flat-panel television sales in China, according to a report from China Electronic Chamber of Commerce. TV producers are competing fiercely for market share.
Satellite launched for Olympic TV broadcast
(China Daily, 9 Jun 2008)
China launched a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-9, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern Sichuan Province at 8:15 p.m. (Beijing Time) Monday. Audiences would be able to watch live broadcasts of Olympic events via the satellite. The quality and coverage of the country's television and broadcasting services were to be increased, and people in remote regions of China would receive clear television programs.
Last month countdown – We are ready!
(China Daily, 8 Jul 2008)
As one of the most influential Olympic sites in English, the China Daily Olympics site will continue to present a feast of up-to-date and exciting reports of the Beijing Olympic events to our readers.
Broadcasters move into Olympic press center
(China Daily, 9 Jul 2008)
The International Broadcasting Center officially opened Tuesday, though not all press media were allowed to enter the 90,000-sq-m compound. On Tuesday Chinese and American teams were unloading their equipment from two pink containers, which belonged to NBC, the largest broadcaster of the Beijing Games. "That's (only) two of a hundred containers we've shipped from the US," John Fritsche, senior vice-president of NBC Olympics, told China Daily.
China Reiterates Vow to Facilitate Olympic Reporting
(Xinhua, 22 Jul 2008)
"The Chinese government will abide by the Olympics' reporting rules seriously and completely, and try its best to facilitate the reporting," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular briefing here.
Olympic Media Village Opens, China Opens to Global Media
(Xinhua, 25 Jul 2008)
The Olympic Media Village opened on Friday for 21,600 domestic and foreign registered reporters, amid some foreign media's concerns about free reporting in China. Friday's People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's ruling party, ran a commentary appealing to administrations and common people to "befriend the media. "To serve the media is to serve the Olympic Games," the article said. "To befriend the media is to befriend the audience."
Chinese Gov't Won't Allow Spread of Illegal Information Online
(Xinhua, 31 Jul 2008)
Sun Weide, the Beijing Olympics spokesman, at a press conference in the Main Press Center (MPC) of the Games, in response to some reporters' questions about the difficulties they met in browsing certain websites said, "We hope the media could respect relevant laws and regulations of China."
BBC Chief Hails Beijing Olympics, More Open China
(Xinhua, 9 Aug 2008)
Mark Thompson, Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), praises here on Saturday the "exciting" opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and a China increasingly open to the world.
Media - International
Ambush Marketing - Playing the game
(The Economist, 3 Jul 2008)
Ambush marketers have replaced hooligans as the villains of sporting events, because they undermine official sponsors, which are the main source of revenue in some sports. The stakes are highest at the Olympics. This year 12 firms, including Coca-Cola, Samsung and Visa, have paid a total of $866m to be official sponsors of the Beijing Olympics—and they want exclusivity.
(subscription required)
China’s image severely damaged
(Media Tenor, 19 Apr 2008)
The chaos surrounding the relay of the Olympic torch in London, Paris and San Francisco has been the latest blow to China's international reputation, with scenes of Chinese men in blue tracksuits running and pushing pro-Tibetan protesters, an image that spread wide and was generally associated with oppression and mockery.
Awakening the dragon
(The Guardian, 22 Apr 2008)
So far, despite the protests, no change in China's harsh grip on Tibet is in prospect - or in the Communist party's overall policy outlook. But Chinese officials say they are working on ways to improve their image through better public diplomacy.
China plc needs new foreign formula
(BBC News, 27 May 2008)
Among the challenges that China plc needs to grasp, experts argue, is how to use "soft power" to its advantage. This concept has tended to more be familiar in diplomatic than commercial circles...In business terms, Chinese firms are not short of the basic attributes associated with so-called "hard power".
Will China wall off access to Olympic broadcasters?
(Palm Beach Post, 17 Jun 2008)
As a visiting communications professor teaching in Beijing last fall, Nancy Snow gave talks to state officials about how to deal with the Western media during the 2008 Summer Olympics. At times, it seemed like the sides were a world apart. Snow tried to get the Chinese to understand how journalists expect to be treated, but the Chinese wanted to know how to "manage" the media.
Chinese state broadcaster chooses Red Bee Media to brand Beijing Olympics
(Broadcast Engineering, 18 Jun 2008)
China Central Television (CCTV) has hired Red Bee Media as the official creative and production partner for the Beijing Olympics — this means creating all the title sequences, graphics and branding for one of the world’s largest broadcasters.
Reporting the Olympics? Better Hope That Moderate Officials Prevail in Chinese Policy Rift
(The New York Times, 28 Jun 2008)
Some foreign journalists in Beijing say that at least part of China’s government is aware of the concerns that all is not right with the media preparations for the Olympic Games due to start on Aug. 8. None of them wanted their names used when the Committee to Protect Journalists spoke with them in the last few days, but their perspective as experienced journalists in Beijing offers a slightly different take than what has been reported so far.
Networks, Olympics organizers clash
(AP, 8 Jun 2008)
Television networks that will broadcast the Beijing Olympics to billions around the world are squaring off with local organizers over stringent security that threatens coverage of the games in two months. Differences over a wide range of issues - from limits on live coverage in Tiananmen Square to allegations that freight shipments of TV broadcasting equipment are being held up in Chinese ports - surfaced in a contentious meeting in late May between Beijing organizers and high-ranking International Olympic Committee officials and TV executives - including those from NBC.
Beijing's troubling Olympic deception
(St. Petersburg Times, 25 Jun 2008)
Media companies that have paid for the rights to broadcast the Games are now being told they will not be able to film live in iconic locations like Tiananmen Square. Chinese officials fear protesters will be visible in the shots and fear an international backlash if cameras catch police violently engaging the protesters.
Nike plans Olympic advert blitz in China
(Financial Times, 30 Jun 2008)
Nike,the world’s largest sports shoe and clothing company, on Monday said an advertising blitz around this summer's Beijing Olympics will not be affected by efforts to curtail "ambush marketing" by non-Olympic sponsors.
China Will Punish Unauthorized Internet Broadcast of Olympics
(Bloomberg, 6 Jul 2008)
New media broadcast rights for the summer games were exclusively granted to CCTV by the International Olympic Committee, according to a joint statement by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the National Copyright Administration and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Two Concerns for Olympics: Air and Access
(The New York Times, 9 Jul 2008)
With a month remaining before the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday praised the city’s preparations but also cited two "open issues" that remain: whether the city can deliver good air quality and fulfill promises to allow television networks to broadcast from non-Olympic sites.
China media clamps slammed a month before Olympics
(Reuters, 7 Jul 2008)
A month before the Olympics, China continues to severely breach its pledge to allow full media freedoms, harassing and restricting foreign journalists in Tibet and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on Monday.
Covering the Olympics
(The Wall Street Journal, 7 Jul 2008)
In 2001, China's Communist leaders promised the International Olympic Committee to allow free press access to both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the country as a whole. So far signs aren't good that Beijing will stick to its word. Witness the case of Norman Choy, a senior reporter with Hong Kong's Apple Daily who was turned away at the Beijing airport on July 1.
Overseas reporters to Beijing Olympics to be well served
(China View, 10 Jul 2008)
Senior leader Li Changchun pledged Thursday that China will provide good media services for journalists covering the Olympics, saying that they can lodge complaints directly to Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), if they feel dissatisfied.
Marathon Viewing
(Conde Nast Portfolio, 9 Jul 2008)
NBC will unleash 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage on viewers. "It’s more live coverage from a single Olympics than the total of all previous Summer Olympics combined," Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, said in a press release issued by the company. In addition to 225 hours of coverage on NBC itself, viewers this year will be able to tune in live to the heretofore ignored triumphs of Olympic canoeing, archery, and judo competitions via NBCOlympics.com.
China Olympics Security Undermines Media Freedoms: Experts
(Reuters, 14 Jul 2008)
China's massive Olympic security drive is undermining media freedoms promised for the Games, Beijing-based journalists say, and risks spoiling a chance for the country to highlight its culture and economic achievements. Recently security officials burst into a government-approved live broadcast, banned a TV crew from an Olympic test event they were authorized to attend, and have been blocking one firm from filming in an ordinary apartment outside the security cordon.
Sam Donnellon: Refuse to Cover the Olympics? Not For All the Tea in China
(Philadephia Daily News, 16 Jul 2008)
Sports Reporter Sam Donnellon explains why, as a journalist, he is looking forward to covering the Games in Beijing
Chinese Impose Blackout Over New Tibetan Monk Deaths
(The Times, 18 Jul 2008)
Two monks at a monastery in western China were killed in a clash with paramilitary police last weekend, three Tibetan sources have told The Times. The Tibetan sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officers from the paramilitary People’s Armed Police were deployed to halt any violence and shots were fired. One said: “Two monks were killed. These were my relatives.”
Western Olympic Ads Cheerlead for China
(The New York Times, 20 Jul 2008)
Pro-China Olympic themed advertising campaigns for Western companies are part of an advertising blitz the likes of which this ostensibly communist nation has never seen. McDonald’s is running a “Cheer for China” television ad. Nike ads feature China’s star hurdler, Liu Xiang, and other Chinese athletes besting foreign competitors. Earlier this year, Pepsi even painted its familiar blue cans red for a limited edition “Go Red for China” promotion.
Networks Fight Shorter Olympic Leash
(The New York Times, 21 Jul 2008)
Many at the network are concerned about how they will be permitted to cover any unscheduled events, like political protests or government crackdowns — or whether the Chinese government will allow them to cover such things at all. But will NBC shy from coverage of any protests? If it does NBC risks being criticized in the West for kowtowing to China — particularly since its corporate parent, General Electric, is aggressively expanding its investments in China.
China’s Unreality TV
(The New York Times, 22 Jul 2008)
To win the right to host the Games, Beijing promised to expand press freedoms for foreign reporters and implied that opening China to the world would help expand human rights more generally. We will never know whether China’s leaders intended to keep their word. What we do know is that the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and governments around the world should have held China to its word. They have not, and China has read their silence as complicity.
Coke Paints Beijing Red for Olympic Games
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 20 Jul 2008)
China's capital is decked in red: Red billboards hang at bus stops; a red kiosk sits on a popular shopping street; at the Olympic Green, the nexus of next month's Olympics, a sprawling red building is under construction. The promotions — including a museum two-thirds as large as the World of Coca-Cola, Coke's namesake museum in downtown Atlanta — are part of a record Olympic marketing blitz by the beverage giant to capitalize on its global sponsorships of the Beijing Games and the Olympic torch relay.
China Denies Work Visa for Los Gatos Olympian; Political Motive Suspected
(The Mercury News, 23 Jul 2008)
Kendra Zanotto was set to work as an expert synchronized swimming reporter for the Olympic News Service, an official arm of the Beijing Games. But she says her visa application was refused Monday because of her affiliation with Team Darfur, an athlete-driven group that seeks to call attention to the crisis in western Sudan.
China and its Friends
(globeandmail.com (blog), 27 Jul 2008)
In a commentary in its Friday edition, the People's Daily made an extraordinary appeal to its readers. It urged the Chinese government and ordinary Chinese citizens to "befriend the media." However recent abuse of correspondents and lack of access for media outlets bring this commitment into question. But there is another issue. The implicit message from the Chinese government is that those who praise the government are "friends of China," while those who criticize or expose problems are deemed "unfriendly" or even "enemies. It should be possible for journalists or scholars to write about China without being deemed a friend or an enemy.
China Defies IOC to Ban Internet Freedom
(The Daily Telegraph, 30 Jul 2008)
Beijing today defied concerns of the International Olympic Committee and press freedom groups by confirming that the internet at Games facilities would remain censored.
Restrictions on Net Access in China Seem Relaxed
(The New York Times, 1 Aug 2008)
The Chinese authorities appear to have lifted some of the restrictions that blocked Web sites for journalists working at the Olympic Village although other politically sensitive sites, including those on Tibet, remained inaccessible on Friday morning.
IMG Scores a Sports Deal With China
(The Wall Street Journal, 31 Jul 2008)
IMG Worldwide Inc., the sports-marketing powerhouse, has struck an exclusive 20-year deal with China's national TV broadcaster that gives the U.S. company the right to develop and market new sports events in one of the world's fastest-growing markets for televised sports.
YouTube to provide Olympics Coverage in Some Countries
(TechWhack, 5 Aug 2008)
Google owned video sharing service YouTube has announced that it has now signed up a deal with International Olympic Committee to provide limited coverage of the event in 77 countries across the world.
China Lifts Internet Restrictions but Warns Foreign Media
(The Daily Telegraph, 1 Aug 2008)
For the first time, major international websites devoted to human rights, such as those of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, were freely accessible on computer screens across the city. Despite the relaxation of censorship, President Hu Jintao, in a rare press conference with foreign journalists, seemed to issue a warning on how China expected the Games to be portrayed.
Beijing Under Wraps
(The New York Times, 4 Aug 2008)
Even as China projects a new air of openness and tolerance as it rolls out the welcome mat for Olympics visitors, the government is cracking down on citizens. Last week, Chinese officials ordered copies of The Beijing News removed from newsstands and censored the newspaper’s Web site after it published a photograph of victims wounded during the 1989 democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. The authorities have barred distribution of the English version of Time Out Beijing, a magazine for which I write, for the past two months. A good friend who is an American professor had valuable political texts in Chinese seized when he arrived at Beijing’s airport. And a shipment of my recently published food memoir, which I intended to distribute to friends, was detained and sent back to the United States by Chinese customs officials, who explained that my books were not “approved materials.”
Clandestine Olympic protests
(BBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
In the world of the Olympic protester, those people who have come to Beijing to voice their complaints about the Chinese government, cloak-and-dagger publicity stunts days before the start of the Games are one way to get their message out.
Protests? Pride? Gold Medals? How Will Beijing Come Out of These Games?
(ESPN, 6 Aug 2008)
What's at stake? To answer this question, a roundtable of four distinguished journalists based in China who have had the chance to watch these events unfold before them was assembled and their conversation recorded. Participants included: Melinda Liu, Anna Sophie Loewenberg, Maggie Rauch, and Raymond Zhou.
China Apologizes for Police Beating of Foreign Journalists
(iStockAnalsyt, 5 Aug 2008)
As tens of thousands of foreign journalists arrive to test China's pledges to respect media freedom during the Olympic Games, the nation offered apologies Tuesday for the beatings that police gave two Japanese journalists who were covering a deadly assault by Muslim separatists.
Has China Opened-up?
(BBC News, 6 Aug 2008)
[video] As hosts of the Olympics, China agreed to be more accessible to foreign journalists. But, as Rupert Wingfield-Hayes discovers, this does not mean being left to wander freely around the country.
Olympics Online, With a Hook
(The New York Times, 9 Aug 2008)
This month, Microsoft is offering Web surfers in the United States a seductive viewing treat. In conjunction with NBC, the software publisher is offering thousands of hours of free video direct from the Olympics in Beijing. For the first time, it will be possible to watch specific events on demand as well as to watch many of the less popular sporting events like cycling and race walking, which in the past have received scant attention in mainstream television coverage of the games. But there’s a catch. To view the video, it will be necessary to download a Microsoft Web browser software component based on a new proprietary technology, Silverlight, that is intended to make it possible to display interactive animations, graphics, audio and video, all within a fixed window inside a Web browser display.
Olympics Coverage Gives NBC a Boost in Ratings
(Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug 2008)
NBC's coverage of the first three days of the Summer Olympics proved to be immune from the trend of declining viewership for most forms of television programming, drawing nearly 27% more viewers than the corresponding period in the Athens Games four years ago, according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.
Olympics a Watershed for China: CCTV ad revenue up 30%
(AdWeek, 12 Aug 2008)
Martin Sorrell whose GroupM is the largest media buyer for Olympics host broadcaster China Central Television, said Monday that he believes the Beijing Games are a watershed event for world consumers' view of China and for revenue at CCTV.
A Cutting-Edge Olympics
(The New York Times, 14 Aug 2008)
The Olympic narrative is always about the human effort to excel in athletic competition, a story of grace and stamina under pressure. This year it is also about technology and how it is shaping both the athletes’ performance and the viewers’ experience.
IOC Tells China Not to Obstruct Reporters
(AP, 15 Aug 2008)
The International Olympic Committee urged China Thursday to allow foreign reporters at the Beijing Games to report freely after a British journalist trying to cover a protest was allegedly roughed up by police.
A Surprise Winner at the Olympic Games in Beijing: NBC
(The New York Times, 18 Aug 2008)
The Beijing Games have become the hottest event of the summer, with numbers that so far have been certifiably big — far beyond the network’s expectations. The Games have drawn an average audience of about 30 million a night on NBC itself, millions more on NBC’s cable channels, 30 million unique visitors to NBC’s Olympics Web site, 6.3 million shared videos from the coverage streamed on the site and an ultimate profit that network executives project will surpass $100 million.
China Keeps Pro-Tibet Websites Blocked
(AFP, 22 Aug 2008)
Pro-Tibet websites remained blocked in the Olympic press centre and elsewhere on Friday, amid reports that Chinese troops had opened fire on protesters in a remote area of southwest China.
Olympics Are Ratings Bonanza for Chinese TV
(The New York Times, 22 Aug 2008)
When the Beijing Olympic Games kicked off two weeks ago with a four-hour spectacular, more than 840 million people in China tuned in, perhaps the largest television audience in history for a single event. The broadcast was the first in a series of Olympic bonanzas for China Central Television, or CCTV, one of the chief propaganda arms of the Chinese state and perhaps also a new global media titan.
Web Audience for Games Soars for NBC and Yahoo
(The New York Times, 24 Aug 2008)
The ratings for NBC’s television coverage of the Games were record-breaking this month. But the extent to which the Internet served as a supplement to television was unprecedented, and there were two clear winners: NBC’s own Web site and Yahoo’s Olympics section.
On TV, Timing Is Everything at the Olympics
(The New York Times, 24 Aug 2008)
Getting American stars like Mr. Phelps and the gymnast Shawn Johnson to perform live in prime time was just one of the moves and unexpected breaks, some going back almost a decade, that set up the spectacular success NBC achieved in the Beijing Games that ended Sunday night.
America’s Commercials at the Olympics
(The New York Times, 24 Aug 2008)
Most of the thousands of spots that ran expressed sentiments familiar to viewers of so-called big events on television. Patriotism is good. Striving for athletic achievement is noble. The world would be a better place if we all drank the same beverages, drove the same cars, shopped at the same stores and bought things with the same credit cards. And too many commercials relied on predictable images to evoke China for Western consumers: dragons, pandas, ninjas, the Great Wall and homages to (or parodies of) “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” This article provides examples of how advertisers fared.
4.7 Billion People Watched Beijing Olympics
(The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Sep 2008)
The Beijing Olympics attracted 4.7 billion viewers, or roughly 70% of Earth's population, from Aug. 8-24, making it the most-watched Games ever, according to data released Friday by Nielsen Media Research.
President Obama’s Middle East Expedition
(, 15 Jun 2009)
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