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1. China’s commitment to improve human rights for the Olympics was not significant and has not been enforced.
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Human rights groups protest the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, California on April 9, 2008. China’s violent repression of Tibet garnered international condemnation.
Photography by: David Pham |
Expectations that human rights would improve as a result of Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics are based more on wishful thinking by the international community rather than serious commitments by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is typical for host cities to make commitments regarding security and freedom of information. However, it is not clear what Beijing may or may not have specifically promised because its host city contract has never been made public (In contrast, the contracts of the previous four host cities, as well as of future host London, are publicly available). The notion that Beijing promised human rights improvements stems mainly from relatively benign statements by officials below the level of national leadership. For example, Liu Qi, Beijing’s former mayor who became the president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) said at the final presentation of Beijing’s bid, that the Olympics would “help promote our economic and social progress and will also benefit the further development of our human rights cause.” In addition, the vice president of the Beijing Olympic committee publicly promised the day before the games were awarded to the city that “we will give the media complete freedom to report.” Whatever the promises, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not hold host countries accountable on human rights in connection with the Olympics. As it has historically, the IOC has mostly distanced itself from the idea that human rights are a relevant consideration for those competing in or attending the games. This has continued in the case of the PRC in the face of serious and systemic rights abuses despite the fact that the Olympic Charter’s founding principles speak of promoting “a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity,” and that “any form of discrimination…is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”
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2. Repression has increased, not decreased, in the lead up to the Olympics.
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People’s Armed Police Officer stands guard against protestors and media in Guangdong province in 2005.
Photograph by: Michael Mooney |
While it may have been naïve to expect human rights improvements in the absence of firm commitments or enforcement mechanisms, it was reasonable to hope that conditions would not actually worsen. Nevertheless, that is exactly what happened. During preparations for the Olympics and despite heightened international scrutiny, Beijing has intensified repression in several respects. First, construction for the games has led to the eviction of more than 1 million people from their homes to make way for new facilities. Similarly, the authorities have moved against the most vulnerable of its citizens, detaining hundreds of people coming to Beijing as “petitioners” seeking redress for abuses by local officials. In addition, PRC authorities responded harshly to protests in Tibet in March and April and followed up with large-scale arrests, trials and a religious crackdown, as well as severe restrictions on travel to the region, including by journalists. Chinese security agencies have also used the need to ensure “Olympic security” as a pretext to increase monitoring and repression of religious minorities such as Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong adherents. In the recent crackdown, at least three Uighurs have been publicly executed following questionable legal proceedings and one Falun Gong adherent has reportedly died in custody. Human rights activists who have criticized the PRC over its handling of the Olympics have been arrested and imprisoned. Finally, many dissidents and journalists fear that once the games are over, and the international spotlight has dimmed, they will face a worse situation than before. Any leverage that the international community might have had to bring about systemic change, release of political prisoners or other improvements, will dissipate.
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3. The Olympics will not be covered freely by foreign or domestic media.
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Chinese officials have closely restricted Beijing’s internet café’s in the run-up to the Olympics. The PRC employs between ten and thirty thousand individuals to monitor internet searches and communications.
Photograph by: Erica Schlaikjer
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Instead of “complete freedom” of the media for the Olympics, restrictions remain on foreign press while China’s own media remains under the control of the Communist Party. Indeed, Chinese journalists face greater repression today than in 2001 when their country was awarded the Olympic Games. An analysis of Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press survey shows that China’s press freedom score dropped four points over the last seven years, sinking lower into the Not Free category. Journalists still undergo Marxist indoctrination. The Central Propaganda Department dictates content through daily directives. The content of these directives is considered a state secret as one journalist, Shi Tao, discovered when he was jailed for publicizing a directive restricting coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. More than two dozen journalists are in jail, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Chinese journalists undertake the greatest risks when attempting to do their jobs, but foreign reporters also face harassment, detention, and physical attacks. While China did ease some restrictions on foreign journalists last year under special reporting rules that extend through the Beijing Games, Chinese officials have switched tactics to maintain control by intimidating Chinese sources and local employees of international media outlets. Reporters at the Olympic Village press center have been unable to access numerous web pages including those of human rights groups, those mentioning taboo topics such as Tibet and news outlets such as the BBC’s Chinese-language news and Radio Free Asia. In addition, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback has cited hotel documents that indicate that China’s intelligence service installed Internet-spying equipment in all the major hotel chains where journalists, athlete’s families and other attending the Olympics will stay. Estimates of the number of people employed by the state security apparatus to monitor internet activity range from 10,000-30,000.
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4. China’s athletics system still bears the hallmarks of a totalitarian system.
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A Chinese gymnast performs her uneven bar routine at the 2007 World Cup Gymnastics finals. Individual achievement has become a matter of national glory (or disgrace) in China’s sports establishment
Photo by: Sheila |
China’s sports establishment and its quest for gold medals are national priorities to which Beijing has devoted billions of dollars. The system was modeled after the old Soviet system of communist party athletics. While control has passed from military to civilian control, further liberalization was halted when Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Efforts to use the games to glorify China—and win the maximum possible number of gold medals—were redoubled. The result is a national strategy called “Winning Pride at the Olympics” that is carried out by the Chinese Ministry of Sports. Hundreds of thousands of children are funneled into training centers where their lives are controlled and their health depends on coaches and sporting officials who are consumed with the idea that winning medals at the Olympics is matter of national glory and failure a national disgrace.
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5. The Olympic Games have political implications and are not just a sporting event.
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Beijing’s official timekeeper counts down to the start of the Olympics in 2007. China is ramping up internal repression measures as the Olympics draw near
Photography by: Nemetz
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U.S. President George W. Bush rejects criticism of his plans to attend the Beijing Olympics by saying he views the games as sports, not politics. In fact, it is not possible to divorce the Olympics from politics. Unavoidably, the Olympic Games reflect the character of the host regime. In Berlin in 1936, Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime used the games to try to advance their racist ideology. In 1980, The Soviet Union used its totalitarian control over athletics to seek an uncompetitive advantage that would glorify the party. The Beijing Games of 2008 are similarly colored by the nature of the Chinese regime as illustrated by its human rights abuses and its strict control of both foreign and domestic media. Moreover, Beijing itself views the Olympics in political terms. When Beijing won its bid to host the Olympics, the official Xinhua News Agency called its victory "another milestone in China's rising international status and a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation." China’s state security apparatus has drawn up a secret internal blacklist of the types of people it intends to prevent from entering China for the games. The course and the conduct of the Olympic torch relay was designed to assert China’s national interests and sovereignty, as well as the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party as the only ruling power. This clear use of the games as a political platform was further reinforced during the torch relay’s stop in Tibet, when the region’s Communist Party head Zhang Qingli used the opportunity to vilify the Dalai Lama and restate that: "Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it."
Resources:
- China's Block on Dissidents Heightens Importance of Bush Visit, Freedom House, July 1, 2008
- Notification on carrying out stringent background investigations on individuals applying to participate in the Olympics and performing a pre-selection, Human Rights in China, 2007
- China Security Issued Blacklist of 43 Types of People in 11 Categories to be Barred from Attending Olympic Games, China Aid, November 9, 2007
- China condemns Dalai Lama in Tibet, Reuters, June 21, 2008
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