Sunday, April 27, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
[+/-] : Coca-Cola Faces Critics of Its Olympics Support
Bradley C. Bower/Associated Press
Pro-Tibet demonstrators picketed and chanted outside Coca-Cola’s annual meeting in Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday.
Coca-Cola Faces Critics of Its Olympics Support
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD , The New York Times
April 17, 2008
It is getting tougher to be a global brand these days. Just ask Coke.
As one of the most prominent sponsors of the Olympics, Coca-Cola found itself on the hot seat on Wednesday at its annual shareholder meeting in Wilmington, Del. Outside, protesters chanted and waved picket signs. Inside, they engaged the chief executive, E. Neville Isdell, in a rare public dialogue about China’s human rights record in Tibet.
“Will you tell the I.O.C. to stop taking the Olympic torch relay into Tibet, because Tibet belongs to Tibetans?” asked one protester in the audience, Lobsang Choefel, who described himself as a native Tibetan. He was referring to the International Olympic Committee.
Mr. Isdell — who had just described first-quarter results that rose on the strength of international sales in countries like China — stood firm. The torch relay “has symbolized openness, it has symbolized hopes,” he said. “I don’t believe that stopping the torch run is in any way over the long term going to be the right thing to do.”
The moment seemed to encapsulate the quandary the Olympics sponsors face as protests unfurl across various continents. In India, home to more than 100,000 Tibetans in exile and their religious leader, the Dalai Lama, even the official corporate sponsors avoided buying television and radio ads that were timed to the Olympic torch relay on Thursday, media executives there said.
And in China, a different sort of backlash has been taking shape — against the companies from countries that seem to be putting pressure on China. French companies like Carrefour are a particular target because of the mayhem during the Paris leg of the torch relay and because the French president has said he may skip the opening ceremony in Beijing over China’s human rights record.
“I think boycotting Carrefour is a peaceful and polite way to express our anger, our Chinese feelings got deeply hurt by France,” said Li Meng, a 25-year-old mechanic who is selling T-shirts in support of the boycott movement in the city of Yantai, in eastern China. “France humiliated China during the torch relay and keeps making trouble for the Olympics.”
American brands like McDonald’s and KFC have also been named as targets of a boycott because some American politicians seem to be supporting the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing blames for instigating violence in Tibet to disrupt plans for the Olympics.
No one knows whether there is widespread support for the boycotts, but the opposition comes at a time when many of the world’s biggest brands — including Coke — are expanding aggressively in China and planning huge sales and marketing campaigns to coincide with the Olympics.
Coca-Cola’s most recent quarterly results suggest the extent of its reliance on the Chinese market. During the first quarter, Coke’s unit case volume sales in China were up 20 percent in the quarter, one of the highest figures from any country. Over all, the company’s net income rose 19 percent in the quarter, to $1.5 billion, from $1.26 billion a year ago.
Bill Pecoriello, research analyst at Morgan Stanley, estimates that 5 to 6 percent of Coke’s total revenue comes from China (Coca-Cola does not break out the figure).
The importance of China for Coke should increase, Mr. Pecoriello said. He estimated that Coke sold 1.2 billion cases in China in 2007 and forecast that it would sell 1.5 billion cases there in 2008. That compares with larger but slower-growing sales in the United States: 5.4 billion cases in 2007 and 5.45 billion cases in 2008, Mr. Pecoriello said.
Neither Coca-Cola nor any of the other Olympic sponsors has flinched in its public support for the games, but the groups that are protesting China’s policies in Tibet and Darfur are vowing to step up their pressure. This could lead to showdowns, or even to a possible whipsaw for the companies if Chinese youths start protesting en masse in the other direction.
“We’re not asking Coke to solve Tibet’s problems,” Lhadon Tethong, the director of an organizing group called Students for a Free Tibet, told Mr. Isdell at the shareholder meeting on Wednesday. “We’re not asking you to do anything else but tell the I.O.C. this is not the time for the torch to go to Tibet.”
Ms. Tethong added, “You have influence, and you know you have influence. Please don’t hide behind a spin.”
Mr. Isdell — who will be succeeded by the company’s president and chief operating officer, Muhtar Kent, by the time the Olympics start in August — responded politely and at some length. “I want to thank you for your clarification and also for your declared integrity,” he said, adding that, technically, the route of the torch was not governed by the I.O.C., but by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. On a philosophical note, Mr. Isdell added, “We still believe that the torch is a light of hope, and we trust that’s what it will be as it goes every single place in the world.”
In the future, Mr. Isdell suggested, the company does still want to buy the world a Coke. “We are already a sponsor of the Olympic games — wherever they may go — through 2020, and I trust that will continue through 2028,” he said.
Last week, several other sponsors, including Visa International, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Home Depot, United Parcel Service and AT&T reaffirmed their support of the Olympics and said that their marketing plans had not changed because of the protests.
“As critical as Tibet is, I think sponsors are looking at the situation saying, ‘We’ve still got days to go,’ ” said Damien Ryan, director of Ryan Financial Communications, a Hong Kong media relations firm that has sponsors as clients. “Things can change quite quickly, and from their point of view, they realize that Beijing has got a long memory.”
David Barboza contributed reporting from Shanghai and Heather Timmons from New Delhi.
...
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[+/-] : Bracing for Games, China Sets Rules That Complicate Life for Foreigners
Christie Johnston , The New York Times
Outside a visa application office in Hong Kong. China has imposed new restrictions on visas that concern many foreigners.
Bracing for Games, China Sets Rules That Complicate Life for Foreigners
By ANDREW JACOBS for The New York Times
April 24, 2008
BEIJING — In little more than 100 days, China will open its arms to a deluge of foreigners, many of whom will be pleasantly surprised to find a dizzying array of designer boutiques and painfully hip martini bars that divert expatriates and middle-class Chinese in this once dowdy capital.
But even as Beijing is promising to welcome 1.5 million visitors to the Olympic Games, public security officials are tightening controls over daily life and introducing visa restrictions that are causing anxiety among the 250,000 foreigners who have settled here in recent years.
The visa rules, which were introduced last week with little explanation, restrict many visitors to 30-day stays, replacing flexible, multiple-entry visas that had allowed people to remain for up to a year. The new rules make it harder for foreigners to live and work in Beijing without applying for residency permits, which can be difficult to obtain. The restrictions are also complicating the lives of businesspeople in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore used to crossing the border with ease.
“I can’t begin to explain how serious this is going to be,” said Richard Vuylsteke, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. “A barrier like this is going to have a real ripple effect on business.”
The government wants to present a blemish-free image of Beijing for the Olympics. Police officers have cleared away street beggars and closed down shops selling pirated DVDs, while also forcing some migrant workers to go back to the countryside.
Over the last month the police have raided bars and clubs suspected of harboring drug dealers. An operation two weeks ago that netted a group of French teenagers has provoked charges of heavy-handed police tactics.
Other restrictions can seem random, like a decision on Wednesday that forced the cancellation of a popular music festival a week before its start. Organizers of the eight-year-old event, the Midi Festival, said officials had told them they were concerned about security. More than 80 bands, many of them from abroad, were scheduled to perform.
But most of the fear and consternation has been prompted by the new visa rules, which have thousands of foreign residents scrambling for black market documents — or contemplating leaving. Residents who in the past could apply locally to extend yearlong tourist or business visas have been instructed to return home and apply for the short-term visas at the Chinese Embassy in their home countries.
Some, like Desmond McGarry, a jazz musician who has lived here since 2002, said they would probably leave. For Mr. McGarry, returning to Canada would mean abandoning his apartment and a network of friends. “It’s been very comfortable until now, even if we existed in a gray zone,” he said. “Maybe I’ll leave and try to come back in the fall when things calm down.”
The new visa rules come at a time of heightened tensions in Beijing and other cities, where public anger has been directed at Western governments and overseas news organizations seen as sympathetic to Tibetan independence. Over the last week, that discontent has fueled demonstrations at the French Embassy in Beijing and at outlets of Carrefour, a French supermarket chain whose executives have been accused of aligning themselves with the Dalai Lama. Some foreign residents are nervously awaiting next Thursday, the first day of a planned Carrefour boycott.
Although the majority of foreigners say they have seen no change in the behavior of their Chinese neighbors and co-workers, some French residents complain that nationalist ire is seeping into their daily lives. One businessman who plays tennis at a Chinese sports club said acquaintances refused to join him on the court last weekend.
More ominously, the owner of a popular French restaurant here said he was denied a visa extension on Wednesday by an official who simply told him, “It’s because you’re French.” The man, who asked that his name and business not be printed for fear of antagonizing the authorities, said he was in a panic. “My whole life is here,” he said.
Most Westerners readily acknowledge that they enjoy privileged lives, including unspoken immunity from the tangle of rules that can complicate the lives of average Chinese.
That may be about to change. Last week English-language signs began appearing on Beijing streets and in high-end apartment buildings directing foreigners not staying in hotels to register with the police. The regulations, which are not new but are rarely enforced, promise steep fines for those who do not comply.
Because the government has not issued formal guidelines about the new visa rules, rumors and uncertainty have been rife, and travel agents say that a handful of tourists have been denied visas without evident rationale.
Cloris Yip, the manager of Smiley Travel in Hong Kong, cited the example of two tourists, a Swiss and a German; the Swiss citizen received a 30-day visa while his German companion was given one for five days. The men, she said, canceled their trip.
“Maybe the Chinese government is not so happy with the Germans right now,” Ms. Yip said. “Maybe they think some foreigners want to protest Tibet during the Games. Either way, you cannot argue or negotiate.”
Businessmen are also feeling powerless. Hong Kong executives accustomed to visiting mainland factories or construction projects every few days are now spending one day each week waiting for new single- or double-entry visas.
“Everyone is affected by it, and they are very unhappy,” said Seth Peterson, a vice president of Techtronic Industries Company, which manufactures vacuum cleaners and power tools in southern China.
Asked about the restrictions, Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, insisted that there had been no change in visa rules. “The Chinese people will welcome foreign friends in a warm, enthusiastic and open-minded way,” she said during a news conference on Tuesday.
Whether or not these are just temporary measures, those who depend on foreign expertise for their businesses say the impact has been real. Collin Crowell, the managing editor of City Weekend, an English-language entertainment guide in Beijing, said the new requirements were causing consternation among the magazine’s freelance writers.
And Raluca Riquet, an event planner who is organizing art shows for the summer, said she was struggling to find curators with valid visas.
“We’ll find a solution, but it’s not so easy,” said Ms. Riquet, who holds dual French and Romanian citizenship. “The government really wants to control everything and everybody before the Olympics. For us foreigners, it’s a really big change.”
...
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[+/-] : Foreign Press Set for Curtailed Everest Torch Trip
Foreign Press Set for Curtailed Everest Torch Trip
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
April 25, 2008
BEIJING (Agence France-Presse) — A group of foreign reporters prepared on Thursday to go to Tibet to cover the ascent of the Olympic torch to Mount Everest. They were the first overseas journalists allowed into the riot-scarred region in a month.
China plans to take a special high-altitude Olympic torch to the summit of Everest, the world’s tallest peak, in May, and had invited reporters from around the world to cover the event as a triumphal symbol of Beijing’s role as host of the Olympics in August.
The media delegation was to leave Beijing on Friday for the tightly managed trip. China made late changes this week to curtail reporting, in the wake of unrest in Tibet.
Olympic officials said no coverage would be allowed of a mountaineering team’s departure from base camp with the torch, tentatively set for Saturday, nor of anything unrelated to the torch.
Reporters have raised concerns about their health because a new schedule calls for a trip of about three days through Tibet to the Mount Everest base camp. The journalists said that ascending too quickly to the camp’s elevation of 16,900 feet could cause severe health problems.
Experts say the trip from Beijing, which is near sea level, to such a high altitude should not be made in less than a week.
Officials denied that the plans had been changed in response to the unrest in Tibet. The Olympic torch has become a magnet for protests against China’s crackdown on Tibetan unrest and China’s human rights record.
The trip appeared thrown into further chaos early Thursday when the organizers of the Olympics suddenly set a Thursday morning payment deadline for air tickets to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. An Olympic official charged with collecting payments then inexplicably refused to accept fees from some news organizations. Later, several were invited to go ahead with the trip. The New York Times was not invited to participate.
Some news organizations decided not to participate. Agence France-Presse decided not to send a reporter, mainly because of health concerns.
China tightened control on Tibet after anti-Chinese rioting broke out in Lhasa on March 14, spreading across the Tibetan plateau, and expelled foreign reporters and tourists from the Himalayan region.
Reporters Without Borders, which advocates press freedom, has echoed widespread calls for unfettered news media access to Tibet. Human rights groups continue to report disturbances and arrests in the region.
”Things are clearly far from being back to normal as the authorities claim,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The few reports emerging suggest a very different situation, one of arrests and a climate of fear in the cities and around the monasteries.
Foreign journalists last were allowed to enter Tibet for a government-led news media trip to Lhasa in late March.
...
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By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
April 25, 2008
BEIJING (Agence France-Presse) — A group of foreign reporters prepared on Thursday to go to Tibet to cover the ascent of the Olympic torch to Mount Everest. They were the first overseas journalists allowed into the riot-scarred region in a month.
China plans to take a special high-altitude Olympic torch to the summit of Everest, the world’s tallest peak, in May, and had invited reporters from around the world to cover the event as a triumphal symbol of Beijing’s role as host of the Olympics in August.
The media delegation was to leave Beijing on Friday for the tightly managed trip. China made late changes this week to curtail reporting, in the wake of unrest in Tibet.
Olympic officials said no coverage would be allowed of a mountaineering team’s departure from base camp with the torch, tentatively set for Saturday, nor of anything unrelated to the torch.
Reporters have raised concerns about their health because a new schedule calls for a trip of about three days through Tibet to the Mount Everest base camp. The journalists said that ascending too quickly to the camp’s elevation of 16,900 feet could cause severe health problems.
Experts say the trip from Beijing, which is near sea level, to such a high altitude should not be made in less than a week.
Officials denied that the plans had been changed in response to the unrest in Tibet. The Olympic torch has become a magnet for protests against China’s crackdown on Tibetan unrest and China’s human rights record.
The trip appeared thrown into further chaos early Thursday when the organizers of the Olympics suddenly set a Thursday morning payment deadline for air tickets to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. An Olympic official charged with collecting payments then inexplicably refused to accept fees from some news organizations. Later, several were invited to go ahead with the trip. The New York Times was not invited to participate.
Some news organizations decided not to participate. Agence France-Presse decided not to send a reporter, mainly because of health concerns.
China tightened control on Tibet after anti-Chinese rioting broke out in Lhasa on March 14, spreading across the Tibetan plateau, and expelled foreign reporters and tourists from the Himalayan region.
Reporters Without Borders, which advocates press freedom, has echoed widespread calls for unfettered news media access to Tibet. Human rights groups continue to report disturbances and arrests in the region.
”Things are clearly far from being back to normal as the authorities claim,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The few reports emerging suggest a very different situation, one of arrests and a climate of fear in the cities and around the monasteries.
Foreign journalists last were allowed to enter Tibet for a government-led news media trip to Lhasa in late March.
...
Read more
Thursday, April 24, 2008
[+/-] : President Bush: Boycott Olympics Opening Ceremony
President Bush: Boycott Olympics Opening Ceremony
Target: President George Bush
Sponsored by: Care2
When China was awarded the 2008 games seven years ago, the international community expected that this opportunity would help improve China's human rights record. Yet the world has witnessed exactly the opposite. Despite rallying cries around the world, China continues its harsh crackdown on protesters in Tibet and internal dissent, most recently by imprisoning noted human rights activist Hu Jia. But with the blazing tour of the Olympic torch, millions of protesters from Paris to San Francisco have been speaking out passionately for human rights in China, Tibet, Darfur and Burma. President Bush has a unique opportunity to speak out for those who are silenced. By boycotting the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, President Bush can join other world leaders in urging China to stop its repression of activists and work to improve human rights at home and in Darfur and Burma where China wields great influence....
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
[+/-] : Boycott Opening Ceremonies
Boycott Opening Ceremonies
Set aside Tibet and other legit grievances.
Make Chinese action on Darfur a condition of attending.
Jonathan Alter NEWSWEEK
It's a 100-day dash, and the world had better get at least a silver. In the time before the Beijing Olympics opens in August, the West has a chance to bring China further into the community of responsible nations. If we fail, we may spend the rest of the 21st century regretting that we didn't use some leverage when we had it. Half a dozen European leaders and the Democratic presidential candidates are urging a mini-boycott of Beijing's opening ceremonies. They're right to do so; it's the best shot we've got.
After promising Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee that it would respect human rights, at least until the Games end, the regime moved in the opposite direction by stepping up its harassment of dissidents. While showing some important signs of maturity in joining regional efforts to deal with North Korean nukes, the government has found it hard to break bad habits: it took the bait in Tibet, indulging in stale denunciations of the Dalai Lama after cracking heads in the worst violence there in 20 years; it continues to back the military thugs in Burma, and promises of unfettered international press coverage and Internet access are proving worthless.
So are the efforts of the regime's public-relations geniuses. Just as images were being broadcast of the latest Olympic sport (hide-and-seek with the torch and demonstrators on the streets of San Francisco), China made a big announcement. More than three dozen Islamic extremists of Chinese extraction had been arrested and charged with plotting to kidnap athletes when they arrive in Beijing. Could be legit, but I wouldn't bet the subprime mortgage on it. The timing is highly suspicious.
The worst example of Chinese global irresponsibility is in Darfur. Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's special envoy in the region, is praising China's efforts to push the Sudanese regime to end the war and ease the plight of 3 million refugees. Where's the proof? China buys two thirds of Sudan's oil and thus calls the tune there. But it continues to violate the United Nations arms embargo by shipping weapons to Sudan, which are then passed on to the Janjaweed goons who, by some estimates, have killed or intentionally starved to death nearly half a million people. And they've raped on a scale the Chinese should remember from their own World War II experience with the Japanese in Nanking. Those vehicles the soldiers use for their genocide are called Dongfeng military trucks.
Foreign-policy realists say that human rights are important but should be far down the list of American issues with the Chinese—below restraining nukes (China has influence in Iran as well as North Korea), climate change (on average, one new Chinese coal-fired plant opens there every week) and balance of trade (the company you work for may be in hock to a Chinese bank). But these concerns are interrelated, and can be addressed only when China moves beyond lip service and actually abides by the norms of what, for lack of a more felicitous phrase, we call the global community.
Bush's private phone chats with Hu Jintao every six weeks aren't getting that done, but shaming the Chinese by withholding athletes from the Games won't work either. The insult would be felt not just by the Chinese government but by nearly all the Chinese people, who have made astonishing progress in the past three decades and deserve the recognition the Games offer. This isn't exactly the best time to make enemies of a billion more people around the globe. Their nationalist fervor and hair-trigger resentment of foreign intervention in Chinese affairs is grounded in bitter historical experience from the imperialist opium wars forward. So any comparison to the 1936 Games, when Hitler had been in power only three years, is misplaced. This is a coming-out party for a country, not for a murderous regime in power for 60 years.
There's a middle ground in all this, and that's where the threat of head-of-state no-shows at the opening ceremonies comes in. The beauty of the idea, first raised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is that avoiding this mini-boycott will require the Chinese to sit down with all the European countries now considering it, and to do so outside the stultifying confines of the G8 summit.
The best way forward would be to temporarily set aside Tibet and the many other legitimate grievances animating the flame-chasing demonstrators in cities around the world and focus on Darfur. Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times proposed a conference on genocide, with the intriguing idea that it be held in Rwanda, site of the worst mass killing of the past 25 years. If a meeting were held somewhere, if China signed a meaningful agreement and if the commitments were carried out on the ground in Darfur, then all the presidents and prime ministers show up in Beijing and watch the parade.
That's a lot of ifs. While the Chinese don't want their party spoiled, they aren't about to lose face by being forced to capitulate. But let's remember how high the stakes are. We have a window of only a couple of decades at most before China dislodges us as the largest economy in the world. At that point, it will either be a responsible (if likely still undemocratic) superpower, or it will be moving the planet in an authoritarian direction. The Olympics may be the world's last lever. A medal—maybe even a Nobel Prize—for the diplomats who can pull it properly.
...
Read more
Set aside Tibet and other legit grievances.
Make Chinese action on Darfur a condition of attending.
Jonathan Alter NEWSWEEK
It's a 100-day dash, and the world had better get at least a silver. In the time before the Beijing Olympics opens in August, the West has a chance to bring China further into the community of responsible nations. If we fail, we may spend the rest of the 21st century regretting that we didn't use some leverage when we had it. Half a dozen European leaders and the Democratic presidential candidates are urging a mini-boycott of Beijing's opening ceremonies. They're right to do so; it's the best shot we've got.
After promising Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee that it would respect human rights, at least until the Games end, the regime moved in the opposite direction by stepping up its harassment of dissidents. While showing some important signs of maturity in joining regional efforts to deal with North Korean nukes, the government has found it hard to break bad habits: it took the bait in Tibet, indulging in stale denunciations of the Dalai Lama after cracking heads in the worst violence there in 20 years; it continues to back the military thugs in Burma, and promises of unfettered international press coverage and Internet access are proving worthless.
So are the efforts of the regime's public-relations geniuses. Just as images were being broadcast of the latest Olympic sport (hide-and-seek with the torch and demonstrators on the streets of San Francisco), China made a big announcement. More than three dozen Islamic extremists of Chinese extraction had been arrested and charged with plotting to kidnap athletes when they arrive in Beijing. Could be legit, but I wouldn't bet the subprime mortgage on it. The timing is highly suspicious.
The worst example of Chinese global irresponsibility is in Darfur. Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's special envoy in the region, is praising China's efforts to push the Sudanese regime to end the war and ease the plight of 3 million refugees. Where's the proof? China buys two thirds of Sudan's oil and thus calls the tune there. But it continues to violate the United Nations arms embargo by shipping weapons to Sudan, which are then passed on to the Janjaweed goons who, by some estimates, have killed or intentionally starved to death nearly half a million people. And they've raped on a scale the Chinese should remember from their own World War II experience with the Japanese in Nanking. Those vehicles the soldiers use for their genocide are called Dongfeng military trucks.
Foreign-policy realists say that human rights are important but should be far down the list of American issues with the Chinese—below restraining nukes (China has influence in Iran as well as North Korea), climate change (on average, one new Chinese coal-fired plant opens there every week) and balance of trade (the company you work for may be in hock to a Chinese bank). But these concerns are interrelated, and can be addressed only when China moves beyond lip service and actually abides by the norms of what, for lack of a more felicitous phrase, we call the global community.
Bush's private phone chats with Hu Jintao every six weeks aren't getting that done, but shaming the Chinese by withholding athletes from the Games won't work either. The insult would be felt not just by the Chinese government but by nearly all the Chinese people, who have made astonishing progress in the past three decades and deserve the recognition the Games offer. This isn't exactly the best time to make enemies of a billion more people around the globe. Their nationalist fervor and hair-trigger resentment of foreign intervention in Chinese affairs is grounded in bitter historical experience from the imperialist opium wars forward. So any comparison to the 1936 Games, when Hitler had been in power only three years, is misplaced. This is a coming-out party for a country, not for a murderous regime in power for 60 years.
There's a middle ground in all this, and that's where the threat of head-of-state no-shows at the opening ceremonies comes in. The beauty of the idea, first raised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is that avoiding this mini-boycott will require the Chinese to sit down with all the European countries now considering it, and to do so outside the stultifying confines of the G8 summit.
The best way forward would be to temporarily set aside Tibet and the many other legitimate grievances animating the flame-chasing demonstrators in cities around the world and focus on Darfur. Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times proposed a conference on genocide, with the intriguing idea that it be held in Rwanda, site of the worst mass killing of the past 25 years. If a meeting were held somewhere, if China signed a meaningful agreement and if the commitments were carried out on the ground in Darfur, then all the presidents and prime ministers show up in Beijing and watch the parade.
That's a lot of ifs. While the Chinese don't want their party spoiled, they aren't about to lose face by being forced to capitulate. But let's remember how high the stakes are. We have a window of only a couple of decades at most before China dislodges us as the largest economy in the world. At that point, it will either be a responsible (if likely still undemocratic) superpower, or it will be moving the planet in an authoritarian direction. The Olympics may be the world's last lever. A medal—maybe even a Nobel Prize—for the diplomats who can pull it properly.
...
Read more
Friday, April 18, 2008
[+/-] : Torch lights up China's shame
Torch lights up China's shame
M R Narisa's decision preceded the growing international call on Beijing to take concrete steps to save the Olympic Games from turning into a national embarrassment for China. The best way they can do this is by heeding the Dalai Lama's request to open a dialogue on Tibet.
The Games were created to build "a peaceful and better world" through sports played with the "Olympic spirit" of mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity and fair play, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). As the host of this world-renowned sporting event, China has every reason to follow in that spirit.
The Dalai Lama has shown great courage in his proposal for a discussion over the possibility of Tibet having some autonomy over its social and cultural life - a proposal many of his own people view as too mild. Instead of condemning the spiritual leader as the hand behind the chaos, China could have gained the trust of Tibetans and the international community had it shown a willingness to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
While China would insist on its need to keep its vast territory whole as one country and press on with the Olympic activities despite the outcry, pro-Tibet protesters have every right to counter this global roadshow. If the tug-of-war is allowed to continue, it is the spirit of the Olympics that will be disgraced; so will the credibility and prestige of China.
China wanted to host the Olympic Games to show the world that it is an increasingly important player in the international community. But to do that, it must begin to adhere to international norms on democracy and human rights. The Games are a symbol of world unity, but the spirit of the Games doesn't simply mean holding hands and looking past grave human rights abuses. It also means standing up for the values that we, as a human race, hold dear.
The Olympic torch run has so far shown the success of those who want to prove this. Through London, Paris and San Francisco, the torch was met with pro-Tibet protesters who managed to put the heat on image-conscious China to take real action on easing its tight grip on political dissent. In doing so, the protesters have inspired countless stories on Tibet and a focus on China's other human rights abuses. Anti-junta activists in Burma have belatedly sought to use the Olympics to highlight their plight.
It is good for our world to join together in sport, to find common ground where much divides us. It is not the protesters that continue to divide the world on China, but rather China's hard-line approach to Tibet, Taiwan and others who question the regime.
On the global stage, China cannot manage the show like it does routinely at home. Beijing must realise that the world does not accept its human rights policies, even if it is essential to continue doing business with China.
Hopefully, the international uproar will prompt China to realise that the status quo is unacceptable. China should take steps now to open a dialogue with Tibet, end its weapons sales to Sudan and withdraw support for Burma's generals. Otherwise, the protests will follow the torch all the way to Beijing.
...EDITORIAL of Bangkok Post, April 18 2008
The Olympic torch continues its perilous journey to Beijing, making a stop in Bangkok over the weekend. Last month, environmentalist M R Narisa Chakrabongse, one of the six torchbearers chosen to carry the flame through Thailand, withdrew in protest against China's crackdown on dissidents in Tibet.
M R Narisa's decision preceded the growing international call on Beijing to take concrete steps to save the Olympic Games from turning into a national embarrassment for China. The best way they can do this is by heeding the Dalai Lama's request to open a dialogue on Tibet.
The Games were created to build "a peaceful and better world" through sports played with the "Olympic spirit" of mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity and fair play, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). As the host of this world-renowned sporting event, China has every reason to follow in that spirit.
The Dalai Lama has shown great courage in his proposal for a discussion over the possibility of Tibet having some autonomy over its social and cultural life - a proposal many of his own people view as too mild. Instead of condemning the spiritual leader as the hand behind the chaos, China could have gained the trust of Tibetans and the international community had it shown a willingness to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
While China would insist on its need to keep its vast territory whole as one country and press on with the Olympic activities despite the outcry, pro-Tibet protesters have every right to counter this global roadshow. If the tug-of-war is allowed to continue, it is the spirit of the Olympics that will be disgraced; so will the credibility and prestige of China.
China wanted to host the Olympic Games to show the world that it is an increasingly important player in the international community. But to do that, it must begin to adhere to international norms on democracy and human rights. The Games are a symbol of world unity, but the spirit of the Games doesn't simply mean holding hands and looking past grave human rights abuses. It also means standing up for the values that we, as a human race, hold dear.
The Olympic torch run has so far shown the success of those who want to prove this. Through London, Paris and San Francisco, the torch was met with pro-Tibet protesters who managed to put the heat on image-conscious China to take real action on easing its tight grip on political dissent. In doing so, the protesters have inspired countless stories on Tibet and a focus on China's other human rights abuses. Anti-junta activists in Burma have belatedly sought to use the Olympics to highlight their plight.
It is good for our world to join together in sport, to find common ground where much divides us. It is not the protesters that continue to divide the world on China, but rather China's hard-line approach to Tibet, Taiwan and others who question the regime.
On the global stage, China cannot manage the show like it does routinely at home. Beijing must realise that the world does not accept its human rights policies, even if it is essential to continue doing business with China.
Hopefully, the international uproar will prompt China to realise that the status quo is unacceptable. China should take steps now to open a dialogue with Tibet, end its weapons sales to Sudan and withdraw support for Burma's generals. Otherwise, the protests will follow the torch all the way to Beijing.
Read more
Saturday, April 12, 2008
[+/-] : China's Olympic Shame
China's Olympic Shame
Thursday, Apr. 10, 2008 By SIMON ELEGANT/BEIJING
Why didn't they see this coming? Despite more than seven years' worth of meticulous, down-to-the-last-detail planning that has gone into the Beijing Olympics, China's leaders have seemingly been caught off guard by the most predictable of challenges: discontent in Tibet and international condemnation of Beijing's record of repression. The extent of their surprise can be gauged by their reaction--a brutal crackdown on dissent at home and a deaf ear to criticism from abroad--which is more reminiscent of the heavy-handed communist regime of old than the modern, moderate Beijing that the Olympics are meant to showcase.
China's response to the mid-March riots in Tibet has galvanized its critics around the world, who intend to use the run-up to the Olympics as a showcase of their own. The Olympic-torch relay has been hounded at practically every step--in London, Paris and San Francisco--by pro-Tibet activists. In the French capital, security officials were obliged to turn off the flame on several occasions to protect it from protesters. Even before it arrived in the U.S. on April 8, activists unfurled FREE TIBET banners from the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. On April 9, San Francisco police were forced to shorten the relay in the city, citing security concerns. Beijing vowed to proceed with the relay unchanged, but more protests are expected in the 15 places the torch will visit before returning to Chinese soil on May 4.
So far, Chinese authorities have responded to the clamor by further tightening the clamps on domestic dissent. On April 3, prominent human-rights activist Hu Jia received a 3 1/2-year prison sentence on charges of inciting subversion of state power. Hu's conviction, apparently stemming from articles he wrote and interviews he gave linking the Olympics with human rights in China, was the latest in what rights advocates in China say is a string of detentions of activists all over the country. Beijing is also applying pressure on China's huge online population of some 230 million, which is often cited as the country's most powerful force for greater openness. Thousands of websites have been shuttered, and government control and blocking of sites outside China have intensified in recent months. As Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International, put it in a report released April 1, despite assurances by both the International Olympic Committee and Chinese officials that restraint would be exercised, "the crackdown ... has deepened, not lessened, because of the Olympics."
The question is, Why? Given the international scrutiny of Beijing's actions, the hard line has left many observers puzzled. The wiser course would seem to be a more measured response: to practice better crowd control, manage the media better, try negotiation instead of knee-jerk repression. But China's rulers have shown little such dexterity. Some of the reasons are straightforward. The Communist Party is deeply secretive and highly bureaucratic, and its members are steeped in a long-standing culture of self-preservation. "Part of the head-in-sand problem has to do with entrenched bureaucratic interests," says China expert Perry Link of Princeton University. Officials who have devoted most of their careers to defending authoritarian rule "can't stop chanting that mantra without puzzlement over what to say instead and without a bit of panic about their own rice bowls and even, almost, their own identities," Link says.
Leaders like President Hu Jintao are of a generation that received a Soviet-style education in the 1950s. "They don't have the knowledge or imagination to make better decisions," Link says. They operate under a system of collective decision-making that constrains the state's ability to be flexible in the face of new challenges. "Like the bureaucrats beneath them," Link says, top officials "are frightened about their own positions and don't want to be seen as making 'mistakes,' especially mistakes of softness." This insecurity underlies the central government's heavy-handed tactics and rhetoric, even though repression reduces the country's stature in the global community. "When the rest of the world looks at China, they see this increasingly powerful and confident country," says Wenran Jiang, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. "But when the Chinese leadership looks at the country, they see the exact opposite: weaknesses everywhere, rising inflation and civil unrest, environmental disasters and corruption. So the overall mentality of the central authorities is very insecure and nervous." In the case of Tibet, Chinese leaders are now trapped by their own words, which have fueled nationalist sentiments among ordinary Chinese, who believe that Tibet is Chinese territory. Any appearance of compromise by Beijing would likely be intolerable to the public.
China's problems are not confined to Tibet. There have also been rumblings in the far-western Xinjiang province, populated largely by the Uighur Muslim minority group. Protests by hundreds of Uighurs over religious issues were reported by rights groups in late March. The Chinese press has meanwhile reported several recent clashes with separatist rebels in the province, and in early March the press reported that a Uighur woman had attempted to bring down a domestic passenger jet with a homemade bomb. Add to that widespread discontent over issues such as corruption and rapidly worsening inflation (the price of pork has gone up two-thirds in the past year), and you have the makings of a perfect storm.
It's a storm that threatens to blow in just when everyone's watching--and deciding whether to participate in--China's Olympics. The Prime Minister of Poland has already indicated he will boycott the opening ceremony because of events in Tibet; French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he wouldn't rule out a similar move.
The authorities will no doubt make it virtually impossible for journalists to enter Tibet in the months leading up to the Olympics. But it remains unclear exactly how they intend to deal with the estimated 30,000 foreign reporters expected to witness the event, all of them eager to take advantage of Beijing's regulations specifying that they can interview any Chinese people who agree to talk. "They still don't have any idea what is going to hit them," a senior Western academic with close ties to the upper echelons of the Beijing establishment said months before the Tibet eruption, "or how bad they will look to the outside world." They're already starting to find out.
...
Read more
Sunday, March 23, 2008
[+/-] : Ten Reasons Why the Free World with The Leadership of America Must Boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Communist China
Ten Reasons Why the Free World with The Leadership of America Must Boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Communist China
By Demetrius Klitou
1) Human rights are practically non-existent in Communist China
Religious persecution, imprisonment and murder of non-violent political dissidents, torture, organ harvesting and sentences to hard labour are widespread.
2) The lack of freedom of the press and safety risks for foreign reporters
Many foreign websites are banned from being visited within China, foreign reporters are prohibited from interviewing anyone without previous permission from the government, and the content of all broadcasting is severely restricted. Foreign news media reporters have been arrested and sentenced to prison under vague and wide-reaching security laws.
3) The 1980 Olympic Games in Communist Russia were boycotted by 64 states, under the leadership of the U.S.
Beijing is not any different from Moscow in 1980, which was also the capital of a Communist police state.
4) Communist China constantly threatens to attack Taiwan
China's government passed a law that explicitly calls for military intervention in response to any intention by the democratic government of Taiwan to declare independence. Military manoeuvres indicate that the Communists' military is preparing to enforce this law.
5) Beijing has the most polluted air in the world
Studies and satellites photos have proven that Beijing suffers from extremely high nitrogen dioxide levels, vitally dangerous to the health of the athletes.
6) China is plagued by widespread social, political, and economic unrest
A surge in huge land grabs and forced evictions by the Chinese government for reasons of economic expansion and Olympic Games preparations have sparked thousands of protests. The government has murdered hundreds of protesters.
7) The Chinese have been bribing and threatening large numbers of members of the International Olympic Committee
A number of U.S. Representatives, for example, Congressman Tom Lantos, have stated this on national television.
8) A boycott has some potential to serve as a strategy to encourage human rights in China
Only the greedy and foolish global elite think this is true the other way around.
9) Holding the Olympic Games in Communist China contradicts the Olympic Charter
The Olympic Charter defines the philosophy of Olympism as the "respect for universal fundamental ethical principles" and its goal of promoting "a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
10) Don't repeat the errors of 1936 when Nazi Germany was allowed to host the Olympic Games
The Olympic Games will give Communist China the same propaganda tool Nazi Germany enjoyed. Not since 1936 have the ideals of Olympics been so trampled upon.
Demetrius Klitou is the author of the book The Friends and Foes of Human Rights, available for purchase at www.ebookmall.com. He holds a BA in International Area Studies and a MA in Diplomatic Studies. He will be pursuing a LL.M. in Public International Law at Leiden University.
Published June 28, 2006 by the China Support Network (CSN). Begun as the American response group in 1989, CSN represents Americans who are "on the side" of the students in Tiananmen Square — standing for democratic reform, human rights, and freedom in China. For dissident news; to support a stronger China policy; or get more information, see http://www.chinasupport.net.
...
Read more
By Demetrius Klitou
1) Human rights are practically non-existent in Communist China
Religious persecution, imprisonment and murder of non-violent political dissidents, torture, organ harvesting and sentences to hard labour are widespread.
2) The lack of freedom of the press and safety risks for foreign reporters
Many foreign websites are banned from being visited within China, foreign reporters are prohibited from interviewing anyone without previous permission from the government, and the content of all broadcasting is severely restricted. Foreign news media reporters have been arrested and sentenced to prison under vague and wide-reaching security laws.
3) The 1980 Olympic Games in Communist Russia were boycotted by 64 states, under the leadership of the U.S.
Beijing is not any different from Moscow in 1980, which was also the capital of a Communist police state.
4) Communist China constantly threatens to attack Taiwan
China's government passed a law that explicitly calls for military intervention in response to any intention by the democratic government of Taiwan to declare independence. Military manoeuvres indicate that the Communists' military is preparing to enforce this law.
5) Beijing has the most polluted air in the world
Studies and satellites photos have proven that Beijing suffers from extremely high nitrogen dioxide levels, vitally dangerous to the health of the athletes.
6) China is plagued by widespread social, political, and economic unrest
A surge in huge land grabs and forced evictions by the Chinese government for reasons of economic expansion and Olympic Games preparations have sparked thousands of protests. The government has murdered hundreds of protesters.
7) The Chinese have been bribing and threatening large numbers of members of the International Olympic Committee
A number of U.S. Representatives, for example, Congressman Tom Lantos, have stated this on national television.
8) A boycott has some potential to serve as a strategy to encourage human rights in China
Only the greedy and foolish global elite think this is true the other way around.
9) Holding the Olympic Games in Communist China contradicts the Olympic Charter
The Olympic Charter defines the philosophy of Olympism as the "respect for universal fundamental ethical principles" and its goal of promoting "a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
10) Don't repeat the errors of 1936 when Nazi Germany was allowed to host the Olympic Games
The Olympic Games will give Communist China the same propaganda tool Nazi Germany enjoyed. Not since 1936 have the ideals of Olympics been so trampled upon.
Demetrius Klitou is the author of the book The Friends and Foes of Human Rights, available for purchase at www.ebookmall.com. He holds a BA in International Area Studies and a MA in Diplomatic Studies. He will be pursuing a LL.M. in Public International Law at Leiden University.
Published June 28, 2006 by the China Support Network (CSN). Begun as the American response group in 1989, CSN represents Americans who are "on the side" of the students in Tiananmen Square — standing for democratic reform, human rights, and freedom in China. For dissident news; to support a stronger China policy; or get more information, see http://www.chinasupport.net.
...
Read more
Thursday, March 20, 2008
[+/-] : Tibet Adds Pressure for Olympic Sponsors
Tibet Adds Pressure for Olympic Sponsors
By Joe Mcdonald, Associated Press
McDonald's, Coca-Cola and other sponsors paid tens of millions of dollars to link their names with the Beijing Olympics. Now they're trying to mollify activists pressing for change on Tibet, Darfur and other issues, without angering China.
They have expressed concern over Tibet. Some talk privately to Beijing organizers. Samsung Electronics Co. called off a Beijing news conference scheduled for Friday on the torch relay. But sponsors insist they should stay out of politics.
"We all have to be careful about how we talk about this," said Chris Renner, president for China of sports marketing consulting firm Helios Partners. Its clients include sponsors Volkswagen AG, computer maker Lenovo Group and mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd.
The Olympics almost always attract activists interested in leveraging the popular event to publicize their causes.
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, sponsors faced boycott calls after a county where the beach volleyball event was to be held enacted a measure deemed anti-gay. In Sydney in 2000, there were protests about the environment and Australian aboriginal rights.
But the Beijing Games have generated more heat, in part because of an array of activist groups long critical of China's policies - and newer ones focused on its economic and diplomatic clout.
"Everybody knows we're pretty much on the biggest platform you can pick," Renner said.
Sponsors were already on the lookout for controversy over Sudan, a diplomatic partner and Chinese oil supplier, as well as press freedom, human rights and Tibet.
After protests last week by Tibetans against Chinese rule - and Beijing's crackdown - sponsors said they were watching events closely.
A few have turned to public relations specialists for advice, said a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Coca-Cola Co., Lenovo, McDonald's Corp. and others said this week they plan no changes in strategy.
Likely to face immediate pressure could be Lenovo, Coca-Cola and Samsung, the three sponsors of the Olympic torch relay. The worldwide trek begins this month and will pass through Tibet and up Mount Everest.
Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, or BOCOG, vowed Wednesday that the anti-government riots in Tibet last week and a subsequent crackdown by authorities would not disrupt plans for the torch relay.
"We know the incidents are the last thing we want to see, but we firmly believe that the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region will be able ensure the stability of Lhasa and Tibet, and also be able to ensure the smooth going of the torch relay in Tibet," Jiang told reporters.
Abroad, Tibet activists say they will protest along the torch route in India, Britain and elsewhere to highlight complaints that Beijing is degrading the Himalayan region's distinctive Buddhist culture.
"We have no plans to change any of our activities related to the torch relay," said Christine F. Lau, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman in Beijing.
Samsung said in a statement: "We believe the Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations and we hope that all people attending the games recognize the importance of this."
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Sunday the body is "very concerned" about Tibet. But the IOC insists it is not in a position to pressure China on political matters.
The Olympics is both a premier advertising platform in the fast-growing China market and a chance for sponsors to build ties with Chinese officials by backing a national prestige event.
The companies are counting on the Olympics to raise their profile in China, increase their market share in the country, and attract local partners, and they want to avoid jeopardizing access by doing anything that might upset communist officials. Licensing in China is highly subjective, and Beijing has retaliated in the past for unwanted foreign actions by canceling contracts or restricting market access.
Sponsor payments and other marketing revenues are expected to cover the games' operating costs, about $2.1 billion - a figure that does not include spending on venues and public facilities.
Until last week, the sponsors' biggest concern was pressure over Darfur.
Fronted by actress Mia Farrow and employing disciplined public relations strategies, Darfur activists have been prodding sponsors to lobby Beijing to help pressure Sudan to end the conflict.
Director Steven Spielberg withdrew as an artistic adviser to the games after pressure from Farrow, chairwoman of Dream for Darfur, which wants companies to lobby Beijing. It has warned China that it risks having its games remembered as the "genocide Olympics" and is issuing "report cards" to rate sponsors on their Darfur policies.
Dream for Darfur issued a "report card" in June on sponsors and plans to issue an update this month.
"The companies that get a C, D or F on this next report card will be the focus of our intensive activism between now and the games," said Jill Savitt, Dream for Darfur's executive director. She said the group will picket their headquarters and appeal to TV viewers to turn off their commercials during the games.
General Electric Co. scored highest at a C-plus in the earlier report, in part for donating medical equipment and aid to UNICEF, while Savitt said 13 companies got failing grades.
"The violence and brutality committed against the people in the Darfur region is appalling," said Deirdre Latour, a GE spokeswoman, in an e-mail. Still, she said, "It is not GE's role to use the games to influence government policy."
In the top tier of sponsors are 12 companies that reportedly have paid at least $100 million each to become Worldwide Olympic Partners.
Lenovo, the only Chinese company among the 12, took into account possible activism when it made its plans, said Robert J. Page, the company's Olympics public relations manager.
"All of these potential considerations are taken into the planning process," Page said. He declined to comment on violent scenarios, but said, "The potential for people to express their opinions is certainly something we have taken into consideration, and we would work with BOCOG on anticipating."
Lenovo hopes to use the Olympics to establish itself as a global brand following its 2005 acquisition of IBM Corp.'s personal computer unit. Asked whether the company worries about damage to its image, Page said, "That's not a concern at this point."
"There is no question that the Olympic Games are a powerful force for peace," Page said. "We believe that the games will focus on all the good that is being brought to China, and we are proud to support that."
Coca-Cola, Adidas AG and Omega, a unit of Switzerland's Swatch Group, say they have talked privately to Beijing Olympics organizers.
They declined to give details, but a BOCOG employee said sponsors have asked for information on China's position on Darfur and other sensitive issues.
"They have held intimate discussions with our sponsorship department to better understand the issues and how it may affect them," said the employee, who asked not to be identified further because she was not authorized to talk to reporters.
"It's obviously a fine balancing act that every single Olympics encounters," said Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing director who now works as a consultant. "The PR departments of each of the sponsors have got to be sensible in how they respond."
Robert A. Kapp, a former president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said it's possible that popular anger, particularly among Americans concerned with human rights, may become so severe "that some companies may face a very hard decision as to whether their highly visible support of the Olympics is causing so much damage that they need to reconsider their options."
"I could imagine some companies going back to their advertising departments and external PR advisers and seeing whether there are ways in which the company's presence in support of the Olympics can be reviewed with an eye toward these recent and tragic circumstances," Kapp said by telephone from Port Townsend, Wash.
"There may be different ways of presenting messages that would still support the Olympics, (but) would not cause undue anger and disenchantment among the people of China or at the level of the Chinese government," he said.
---
Associated Press writer Lindsay Holmwood contributed to this story from New York.
---
Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games: http://www.bocog.org
Dream for Darfur: http://www.dreamfordarfur.org
General Electric Co.: http://www.ge.com
McDonald's Corp.: http://www.mcdonalds.com
Coca-Cola Co.: http://www.coca-cola.com
Volkswagen AG: http://www.volkswagen.com
Lenovo Group: http://www.lenovo.com
BHP Billiton Ltd.: http://www.bhpbilliton.com
Adidas AG: http://www.adidas.com
Samsung Electronics Co.: http://www.samsung.com
Students for a Free Tibet: http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org
Omega Watches: http://www.omegawatches.com
...
Read more
By Joe Mcdonald, Associated Press
McDonald's, Coca-Cola and other sponsors paid tens of millions of dollars to link their names with the Beijing Olympics. Now they're trying to mollify activists pressing for change on Tibet, Darfur and other issues, without angering China.
They have expressed concern over Tibet. Some talk privately to Beijing organizers. Samsung Electronics Co. called off a Beijing news conference scheduled for Friday on the torch relay. But sponsors insist they should stay out of politics.
"We all have to be careful about how we talk about this," said Chris Renner, president for China of sports marketing consulting firm Helios Partners. Its clients include sponsors Volkswagen AG, computer maker Lenovo Group and mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd.
The Olympics almost always attract activists interested in leveraging the popular event to publicize their causes.
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, sponsors faced boycott calls after a county where the beach volleyball event was to be held enacted a measure deemed anti-gay. In Sydney in 2000, there were protests about the environment and Australian aboriginal rights.
But the Beijing Games have generated more heat, in part because of an array of activist groups long critical of China's policies - and newer ones focused on its economic and diplomatic clout.
"Everybody knows we're pretty much on the biggest platform you can pick," Renner said.
Sponsors were already on the lookout for controversy over Sudan, a diplomatic partner and Chinese oil supplier, as well as press freedom, human rights and Tibet.
After protests last week by Tibetans against Chinese rule - and Beijing's crackdown - sponsors said they were watching events closely.
A few have turned to public relations specialists for advice, said a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Coca-Cola Co., Lenovo, McDonald's Corp. and others said this week they plan no changes in strategy.
Likely to face immediate pressure could be Lenovo, Coca-Cola and Samsung, the three sponsors of the Olympic torch relay. The worldwide trek begins this month and will pass through Tibet and up Mount Everest.
Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, or BOCOG, vowed Wednesday that the anti-government riots in Tibet last week and a subsequent crackdown by authorities would not disrupt plans for the torch relay.
"We know the incidents are the last thing we want to see, but we firmly believe that the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region will be able ensure the stability of Lhasa and Tibet, and also be able to ensure the smooth going of the torch relay in Tibet," Jiang told reporters.
Abroad, Tibet activists say they will protest along the torch route in India, Britain and elsewhere to highlight complaints that Beijing is degrading the Himalayan region's distinctive Buddhist culture.
"We have no plans to change any of our activities related to the torch relay," said Christine F. Lau, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman in Beijing.
Samsung said in a statement: "We believe the Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations and we hope that all people attending the games recognize the importance of this."
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Sunday the body is "very concerned" about Tibet. But the IOC insists it is not in a position to pressure China on political matters.
The Olympics is both a premier advertising platform in the fast-growing China market and a chance for sponsors to build ties with Chinese officials by backing a national prestige event.
The companies are counting on the Olympics to raise their profile in China, increase their market share in the country, and attract local partners, and they want to avoid jeopardizing access by doing anything that might upset communist officials. Licensing in China is highly subjective, and Beijing has retaliated in the past for unwanted foreign actions by canceling contracts or restricting market access.
Sponsor payments and other marketing revenues are expected to cover the games' operating costs, about $2.1 billion - a figure that does not include spending on venues and public facilities.
Until last week, the sponsors' biggest concern was pressure over Darfur.
Fronted by actress Mia Farrow and employing disciplined public relations strategies, Darfur activists have been prodding sponsors to lobby Beijing to help pressure Sudan to end the conflict.
Director Steven Spielberg withdrew as an artistic adviser to the games after pressure from Farrow, chairwoman of Dream for Darfur, which wants companies to lobby Beijing. It has warned China that it risks having its games remembered as the "genocide Olympics" and is issuing "report cards" to rate sponsors on their Darfur policies.
Dream for Darfur issued a "report card" in June on sponsors and plans to issue an update this month.
"The companies that get a C, D or F on this next report card will be the focus of our intensive activism between now and the games," said Jill Savitt, Dream for Darfur's executive director. She said the group will picket their headquarters and appeal to TV viewers to turn off their commercials during the games.
General Electric Co. scored highest at a C-plus in the earlier report, in part for donating medical equipment and aid to UNICEF, while Savitt said 13 companies got failing grades.
"The violence and brutality committed against the people in the Darfur region is appalling," said Deirdre Latour, a GE spokeswoman, in an e-mail. Still, she said, "It is not GE's role to use the games to influence government policy."
In the top tier of sponsors are 12 companies that reportedly have paid at least $100 million each to become Worldwide Olympic Partners.
Lenovo, the only Chinese company among the 12, took into account possible activism when it made its plans, said Robert J. Page, the company's Olympics public relations manager.
"All of these potential considerations are taken into the planning process," Page said. He declined to comment on violent scenarios, but said, "The potential for people to express their opinions is certainly something we have taken into consideration, and we would work with BOCOG on anticipating."
Lenovo hopes to use the Olympics to establish itself as a global brand following its 2005 acquisition of IBM Corp.'s personal computer unit. Asked whether the company worries about damage to its image, Page said, "That's not a concern at this point."
"There is no question that the Olympic Games are a powerful force for peace," Page said. "We believe that the games will focus on all the good that is being brought to China, and we are proud to support that."
Coca-Cola, Adidas AG and Omega, a unit of Switzerland's Swatch Group, say they have talked privately to Beijing Olympics organizers.
They declined to give details, but a BOCOG employee said sponsors have asked for information on China's position on Darfur and other sensitive issues.
"They have held intimate discussions with our sponsorship department to better understand the issues and how it may affect them," said the employee, who asked not to be identified further because she was not authorized to talk to reporters.
"It's obviously a fine balancing act that every single Olympics encounters," said Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing director who now works as a consultant. "The PR departments of each of the sponsors have got to be sensible in how they respond."
Robert A. Kapp, a former president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said it's possible that popular anger, particularly among Americans concerned with human rights, may become so severe "that some companies may face a very hard decision as to whether their highly visible support of the Olympics is causing so much damage that they need to reconsider their options."
"I could imagine some companies going back to their advertising departments and external PR advisers and seeing whether there are ways in which the company's presence in support of the Olympics can be reviewed with an eye toward these recent and tragic circumstances," Kapp said by telephone from Port Townsend, Wash.
"There may be different ways of presenting messages that would still support the Olympics, (but) would not cause undue anger and disenchantment among the people of China or at the level of the Chinese government," he said.
---
Associated Press writer Lindsay Holmwood contributed to this story from New York.
---
Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games: http://www.bocog.org
Dream for Darfur: http://www.dreamfordarfur.org
General Electric Co.: http://www.ge.com
McDonald's Corp.: http://www.mcdonalds.com
Coca-Cola Co.: http://www.coca-cola.com
Volkswagen AG: http://www.volkswagen.com
Lenovo Group: http://www.lenovo.com
BHP Billiton Ltd.: http://www.bhpbilliton.com
Adidas AG: http://www.adidas.com
Samsung Electronics Co.: http://www.samsung.com
Students for a Free Tibet: http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org
Omega Watches: http://www.omegawatches.com
...
Read more
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
[+/-] : China's Genocide Olympics
China's Genocide Olympics
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation.
Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”
This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese Embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior.
The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.
China provided Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block U.N. action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the U.N. itself.
Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked U.N. convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and U.N. professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the U.N. in its place.
Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the U.N. force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the U.N. to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the U.N. force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.
Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: an American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved.
Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited.
It is true that since the start of the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that U.N. peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan — it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the U.N. peacekeepers — and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.
Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.”
Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified — especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan — and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood.
Without his Chinese shield, Mr. Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.
I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide.
China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.
...
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By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation.
Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”
This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese Embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior.
The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.
China provided Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block U.N. action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the U.N. itself.
Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked U.N. convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and U.N. professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the U.N. in its place.
Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the U.N. force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the U.N. to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the U.N. force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.
Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: an American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved.
Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited.
It is true that since the start of the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that U.N. peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan — it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the U.N. peacekeepers — and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.
Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.”
Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified — especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan — and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood.
Without his Chinese shield, Mr. Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.
I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide.
China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.
...
Read more
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