Olympics

Here's a quick toss to a video posted on YouTube by Australian Broadcasting's reporter Stephen McDonell. He and his crew decided to confront some Chinese security types (not surprisingly they didn't identify themselves) who had been following them in Wenzhou while reporting in China. The team was covering religion, including underground or "house" churches--those not sanctioned by the government. The confrontation with McDonell's watchers in a posh hotel lobby is telling. McDonell's full story aired on May 17; you can find it at abc.net.au/foreign. And add a round of applause for the crew's cameraman Rob Hill for getting so much of the confrontation on tape. 

California-based China Digital Times (CDT) reports new Chinese-language Twitter commentators have appeared in the last week. Twitter is generally blocked in China, but heavily used by activists who access it by means of proxy networks overseas. The recent arrivals are vocal supporters of the government's efforts to tamp down nascent "Jasmine Revolution" rallies anonymously organized in Chinese cities the past two Sundays. 

New York, February 28, 2011--Chinese security officials' concerted attack on the foreign press in a busy commercial street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing Sunday is a return to the restrictions international reporters faced before they were eased in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.   

New York, February 12, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about reported border incidents involving journalists attempting to enter Canada from the United States to cover protests and other events related to the Olympic Games, which begin tonight.

China has denied any involvement in the cyber attacks that Google revealed on January 12, and has said the country’s Internet is open. Local Internet users and entrepreneurs, however, know otherwise.

On the same day that historic protests started by monks in Lhasa began and were to sweep all over Tibet in the subsequent months, Dhondup Wangchen was nearly 3,000 kilometers away in Xian, in China’s Shaanxi province. It was the last day of filming for his documentary film project that sought to give voice to Tibetans in the run-up to the Olympic Games. As was the case throughout China, Xian was caught up in an Olympic fervor. Big red banners were hung all over the city, the Olympic mascots peered from shop windows in unspeakably bright colors. None of this however, seemed to have the slightest connection to Tibet or the discontent of the Tibetan people.

Has the Chinese government learned a public relations lesson from its handling of the unrest in Tibet last year? 

When the International Olympic Committee released its review of Beijing's August Games a few days ago, it didn't hold back from patting itself or China's government on the back. The Games were, to quote the IOC's fact sheet, "by almost every measure, an indisputable success." One of the intangible results the IOC mentioned was that "unprecedented international attention from journalists, activist organizations and foreign leaders highlighted China's strengths as well as its shortcomings." 

China's decision to extend or end the eased restrictions on foreign journalists it put in place for the Olympics is almost a moot point. The decision is expected to be announced tomorrow, and in the past, officials have suggested the new rules will be extended. But a change in the rules will be largely irrelevant to how reporters, foreign and Chinese, operate in China. The government's censorship apparatus is still operating at peak strength, and there will be no change in its policy of controlling media coverage. 

Watch carefully as the Chinese media report on the explosive story of tainted baby formula. The most recent break came from Central China Television (CCTV), the government's official, flagship broadcaster. CCTV reported that an industrial chemical, melamine, has been discovered in milk products--everything from yogurt to ice cream as well as baby formula--from 22 companies nationwide. So far, products from more than 100 companies had been tested. The first company to admit to a problem was Sanlu, the third-largest milk product manufacturer in China.