With the opening of the Beijing Olympics just a month away, the Chinese government has done little to fulfill its promise that the games would usher in human rights improvements. China earned praise only a few weeks ago after the tragic May 12 earthquake disaster led to greater openness in the media and increased activity by civil society groups. Those developments effectively eclipsed a spate of international criticism and Chinese nationalism associated with the travels and travails of the Olympic torch and the ongoing security crackdown in Tibet. However, it has since become clear that the government intends to continue—albeit with new Olympic vigor—its long-standing policy of sanitizing public discourse and using force to muzzle or eliminate sources of potential controversy.
In one recent incident, several prominent human rights lawyers were placed under de facto house arrest to prevent them from meeting with U.S. congressmen Frank Wolf (R, Va.) and Christopher Smith (R, NJ). The congressmen, both critics of the Chinese government, had come to China with a list of 734 political prisoners whose release they were seeking. Wolf has repeatedly called on U.S. president George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in August, as have human rights groups addressing foreign leaders in general. The lawyers’ detention was only the latest round in an ongoing struggle, documented in a recent Human Rights Watch report, between the regime and activist attorneys pursuing the rule of law. When another U.S. delegation visited to discuss human rights in May, similar police actions restricted the movements of a leading AIDS activist and Zeng Jinyan, the wife of jailed dissident Hu Jia.
The government’s efforts to present a harmonious image during the games have extended well beyond high-profile activists. Property owners have already been shunted aside to make way for Olympics-related construction. Officials have also attempted to sweep beggars, prostitutes, petitioners, and even the country’s estimated 120 million hepatitis B carriers under the rug before the foreign guests arrive. The guests themselves will be warned not to engage in any political, religious, or ethnic displays.
Meanwhile, local authorities are being urged to prevent unseemly outbreaks of public protest or violence. Such incidents are increasingly common and unsurprising in a country where access to formal justice through the courts is lacking. Some 30,000 people rioted several days ago in Guizhou province over police handling of the death of a teenage girl; the death was ruled a drowning, but local residents suspected she was raped and murdered by the children of local officials. After the riots, authorities agreed to reopen the investigation. It would be an unexpected boon if the order to prevent protests led provincial leaders to address the people’s concerns in a meaningful way. Closer surveillance and rapid police responses seem far more likely.
As final preparations for the games are made, the Olympic torch furtively wends its way toward Beijing. Officials advised residents to stay indoors and watch the procession on television as it passed through Xinjiang, home to a restive Muslim population. In Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, police lined the torch’s route. Local Communist Party leaders invoked the Olympic spirit during the ceremony there, saying it would encourage them to “resolutely smash” supposed schemes by the Dalai Lama and his supporters to sow chaos in Tibet and disrupt the games. Those remarks prompted a rare rebuke from the International Olympic Committee, which somewhat belatedly reminded the Chinese leadership not to politicize the sporting event.
Beijing has taken some superficial steps to mollify foreign criticism. This week the government held a brief round of talks with the Tibetan government in exile, the first since before the May earthquake. In June, authorities reported the release of 1,157 people who had been charged with minor offenses after the outbreak of protests in Tibetan areas in March, leaving an official figure of 116 people in custody awaiting trial. However, Amnesty International and other groups have reported a host of human rights violations—including unfair trials—linked to the Tibet crackdown, and the official death toll of 21 is feared to be far below the mark. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that China’s Communist rulers will be true to form in the coming weeks, with the Olympics serving as a display of authoritarian discipline rather than the hoped-for debut of slightly more free and open China.
Photo Credit: Flickr user televiseus
