May 09, 2008
Views On China's Torch Relay Split
Was China's Olympic-torch relay around the world a miserable failure or a surprising success?
Yes.
To observers in the U.S. and Europe, Beijing's international spectacle was a public-relations disaster as protesters in both those regions tried to snatch or snuff the torch. Outside China, the relay seemed to symbolize the divisiveness of issues such as China's treatment of its Tibetan population. At home, it represented a profound sense of national unity.
'I am really excited that the torch has come home,' says Laura Yang, a 24-year old consultant from Shanghai. 'The torch relay has been a good patriotic education for people in this country.'
Beijing's slogan for the Olympics ('One World One Dream') belies the disparate perspectives on China, which are so conflicting that it's 'like watching the world's biggest, slowest traffic accident,' writes China-based blogger Dave Lyons, a 30-year-old American who coined the term 'SchizOlympics.' When it comes to contentious issues such as human rights, he says, China and the West live in 'two completely separate parallel worlds.'
Among the vast majority of China's population, there is no regret at having promoted a public display that attracted so much opposition. Sponsors of the torch paid an estimated $60 million to ship it around the world. So when the torch, called a 'sacred flame' in China, reached the mainland on Sunday, it was greeted by tens of thousands of adoring fans -- many with their faces painted with the Chinese flag and Olympic rings. On Thursday, the flame made it through Tibet to top Everest, as one climber shouted 'Long live Beijing!'
That nationalism sharply contrasts with U.S. sentiment towards the superpower. Seven out of 10 Americans felt Beijing shouldn't have been awarded the Games because of its human-rights abuses, according to an April survey conducted by Zogby International during the torch's tour. In England, aspects of the torch relay prompted an outcry from people like Sebastian Coe, the head of London's Olympics Organizing Committee, who referred to the Chinese guards in blue track suits that have accompanied the flame around the world as 'thugs.'
In China, however, the same scene looked heroic, if not sexy. Women have treated one of the guards, known only as Second Right Brother (referring to where he always stands in relation to the flame) as a handsome hero who stands up to protect national pride in the face of adversity. He has already received a marriage proposal from one eager Chinese fan.
When Chinese people started watching online video clips of protesters in the West targeting the torch, they were taken by surprise and responded to the attacks in a extremely personal way. Criticism abroad unified patriotism at home.
'The torch relay showed the power of Chinese people,' says Douglas Zhang, a 24-year-old online editor in Beijing. He was deeply moved, he says, watching 'Chinese people from all over the world get together and voluntarily protect the torch.'
And carry it -- sort of. Some 40 million users of one instant-messaging service switched their icons to torches when the real torch touched ground in mainland China last Sunday, volunteering to become 'virtual torch-bearers.'
It's possible that 'the audience for the international torch relay was not really international -- it was domestic,' says David Wolf, a Beijing-based communications consultant. 'This is really more about getting Chinese to feel good about China.'
China's 1.3 billion people are by no means always this unified. Corruption and a growing divide between rich and poor have led to thousands of protests each year and considerable efforts by a government focused on 'maintaining stability' to redirect energy elsewhere.
Nationalism is a remarkably effective way, though its biggest drawback is a tendency to get out of control. A few zealous patriots have sent death threats to perceived traitors, and some called for a boycott of French supermarket chain Carrefour SA, staging protests outside its Chinese outlets. The government has already worked to rein in some of this more extreme sentiment, even as it has encouraged criticism in the domestic media against foreign coverage of China.
If the torch symbolically flamed out in the U.S. and Europe, it didn't for far-larger audiences elsewhere, say public-relations and branding experts. Jonathan Chajet, the China general manager of Omnicom Group Inc.'s Interbrand agency, says, 'China's potential market is also three billion people in Africa, India and China.'
A market that size has a way of distracting corporate sponsors. Coca-Cola Co., a relay and top-level Games sponsor, threw a giant party when the torch landed in Hainan featuring pop-music performances, and it unveiled a TV commercial featuring a giant red carpet for the torch being rolled out from the top of Mount Everest.
'Being a sponsor is good for Coke around the world -- but the importance this time is making Coke look good in China,' says Russ Meyer, the San Francisco-based chief strategy officer of WPP Group PLC's branding agency Landor Associates. 'The internal benefit plays a larger role than in past Games.'
Beijing's Games themselves may yet surprise detractors and impress everyone, say longtime Olympics watchers, noting that there's almost always controversy before the Games start. If anything, the torch controversy may have helpfully lowered expectations.
'The best thing to do is to walk into this situation with people thinking it's a failure,' says Mr. Wolf, the consultant. 'Then you can't lose.'
Geoffrey A. Fowler
http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20080509/fea175416.asp?source=email
Posted by google at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2008
Route changes, scuffles mark Olympic torch relay
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/09/torch.protest/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Posted by google at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2008
Protest by the Bay
By Imran Syed on 4/10/08
PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 1 The Olympic Torch made its way through San Francisco yesterday, the only American stop on its storied journey around the world. And what a spectacle it was - a San Francisco treat, if you will.
Two hundred police officers were called in to escort the flame in hopes of avoiding the kind of skirmishes that happened as the flame made its way through London and Paris recently. Still, overzealous protestors jumped barricades and shouted "Shame on China" as they attempted to interfere with the procession.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wants the U.S. Olympic Committee to consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing later this year. I strongly disagree, but at least she has a considered, coherent reason for her suggestion. That's a luxury many of her San Francisco constituents apparently cannot afford.
The enraged protestors want the U.S. Olympic Committee to boycott the Beijing Olympics in order to punish China for its continued human rights violations, especially as highlighted by the recent turmoil in Tibet. Hear that China? If you keep silencing journalists and maiming monks, America - the coolest kid on the playground - won't play with you anymore.
Honestly, is the Chinese government supposed to buckle to that sort of bumbling, mindless attempt at coercion? Not caring for what human rights organizations the world over have been saying for decades, is the Chinese government just going to freak and comply in face of demands from a few San Francisco hippies-for-hire? Of course not.
Is the point then simply to polarize Chinese Americans or the good people of China by rubbing our noses at their country's special moment? I hope not, but perhaps the protestors should consider some context. Screaming anti-Chinese sentiments in the shadow of Angel Island - the immigration station that was essentially a jail for Chinese immigrants during the Chinese Exclusion Act - presents a wry human rights irony for our own country. The point of the protest was to bring real, meaningful, lasting social change to the largest polity in the world, but such hackneyed juxtaposition can only undermine that goal.
We have the right in this great democracy to protest, and boy do we use it. But, more importantly, we have the responsibility as mature human beings to act in the way most rational for fulfilling our purpose, and we don't seem to be too big on that.
If you have a strong political message to send, why would you boycott one of the world's largest stages? Should Tommie Smith and John Carlos have boycotted the '68 Olympics because they were upset by racial injustice in American society? Some folks suggested they and other black athletes do just that. But the two American sprinters luckily proved smart enough not to shoot themselves in the foot.
Smith won gold in the 200-meter dash, while Carlos took bronze in the same event. As the Star Spangled Banner played to honor their victories, the two men raised black-gloved fists in the most memorable and damning protest in sports history. The black power salute - initially ostracized, but today celebrated as the heroic gesture that it was - would never have happened had Smith and Carlos decided to stay home.
Certainly the Chinese government, and perhaps even the International Olympic Committee, is terrified of the possibility of the repeat of such a moment. So, my earnest agitators, why ease their fears?
The concept of athletes taking a stand, however, leads us to another dangerous precipice. In 1968, Jim Crow was a tangible reality that black American athletes could readily understand. Thus, Smith and Carlos were politically aware black athletes who protested something that directly affected them. Can that be said for any of the American athletes who may choose to take a stand in Beijing? Probably not.
As much as I do want to see Michael Phelps don the "Free Tibet" Speedo when he breaks those world records, I'd like much more that any political statements made by protestors at events like the one in San Francisco or by athletes at the Olympics be heartfelt, informed and substantive. Wouldn't it be better for all of us if these Olympics went without empty grandstanding by athletes who feel compelled to protest because of the mayhem surrounding these games?
Pelosi wants to boycott the opening ceremony because it is an aggrandizement of the Chinese government. Fair enough, but how about our lawmakers stop being lazy and stop pretending that the Olympics and their athletes have any more capital to effect social change than the government? How about getting some legislation passed, meeting with and pressuring China diplomatically - you know, the sorts of things that actually work?
The Olympics certainly have a political aspect, and there's nothing wrong with athletes behaving as Smith and Carlos did. However, there are so many more substantive ways to bring change, and it's in our best interest to pursue those first.
Imran Syed was the Daily's fall/winter editorial page editor in 2007. He can be reached at galad@umich.edu.
Posted by google at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
Olympic-Torch Protesters Given Slip In San Francisco
from Wall Street Journal
The Olympic torch made its long-anticipated one-day visit to the U.S. Wednesday with the expected protests and some hoodwinking of demonstrators by authorities.
Even more visible in San Francisco than the often violent anti-China protests that have struck the torch run elsewhere was the backlash of hundreds of Chinese-Americans and other pro-China supporters who rose up to protest the protesters. Media attention has not only spotlighted the protests but galvanized support for China among Chinese-Americans and Chinese nationals living in the U.S.
The torch relay began by abruptly going off script. As befuddled demonstrators looked on, the authorities sent the first runner out in another direction than had been planned, like a rock star slipping out the back door. In a cat-and-mouse game between protesters, officers and reporters, the first runner headed out, then veered from the planned route, which authorities apparently feared was too crowded or blocked.
The runner ran to a nearby pier, then vanished into a warehouse. Later torch runners emerged -- cushioned by torch guards and phalanxes of police -- taking another route. Protesters frantically called each other on mobile phones trying to keep up with the route, which had turned inland.
Mayor Gavin Newsom had said earlier that he reserved the right to change the route of the relay at any point, even during the race, if there was a possibility that protesters would interfere. Mr. Newsom has said he is trying to balance the rights of protesters with people who want to enjoy the torch relay in safety.
As colorful flags flapped in a stiff breeze off McCovey Cove next to the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park, police patrolled the waters where fans used to float awaiting Barry Bonds' home runs. Even before the relay began, crowds chanted 'China, China, China' and 'Olympics! No Politics!'
They shouted at, and sometimes jostled, demonstrators objecting to Chinese policies on human rights, Tibet and Darfur. Police struggled to separate the two sides and had detained a protester even before the relay's planned six-mile trip along the waterfront began. About 100 additional police in riot helmets arrived just as ceremonies began.
Earlier, many of the pro-China demonstrators invoked slogans about how sports shouldn't be sullied by politics, but the protests seem to have awakened a broader feeling of angry nationalism among many of the pro-China demonstrators. San Francisco's large Chinese-American population includes many who fled communist rule in China and support Taiwan, and many whose roots in America predate them and who hold no truck with the current Chinese government. But many immigrants are Chinese nationals who left for economic rather than political reasons and resent the protesters trying to spoil their fast-growing country's preamble to the Olympic Games.
At dawn Wednesday, for example, two groups of mostly Chinese exchange students -- one from the University of California at Berkeley and the other from Stanford -- arrived in busloads. 'We are friendly rivals,' said Siqi Mou, an 18-year-old freshman from Stanford, who added her group of about 150 students had responded to Internet pleas from fellow Chinese exchange students in the U.S. to turn out and support the Chinese Olympics.
'We want to encourage Americans to visit China and see the real China,' said Yinjie Tang, a 33-year-old Chinese national who is a postgraduate student at Berkeley. 'We want to let everyone know that, while not perfect, the human-rights situation is improving. Give us time to improve our human rights.'
Since its ceremonial lighting in Greece on March 24, the torch has taken a tumultuous journey across several cities, fending off protesters in London, Paris and elsewhere. San Francisco, with its robust tradition of counterculture dissent, was expected to be the climactic stop. From here the torch will briefly touch down in South America and Africa, then move to Asia, where it is unclear what the reception will be.
In San Francisco, two 'Save Darfur' supporters from the Bay Area, Bruce Grossan and Rick Williamson, were swarmed by dozens of China supporters. A group of Chinese youths surrounded the two, covering their end-genocide sign with several big Chinese flags. Mr. Williamson said he and Mr. Grossan were hit several times with the flagpoles. City police quickly gathered up the two men and asked them to move away from the youths. 'I can't insure your safety,' said one SFPD officer.
Tibet and China supporters clashed nearby. 'You know nothing about Tibet!' said one Chinese man to a young girl in a 'Free Tibet' shirt.
In a press area at the start of the relay, torch runner Raj Mathai, a sportscaster for the local NBC affiliate, stretched. He said security for the runners has been so tight that at a planning meeting for them Tuesday, they convened in a conference room at a San Francisco hotel, then moved to another after just 10 minutes. Mr. Mathai said he and the other runners were advised that, if attacked, they should fall back and let police and security officials protect them. 'I am no longer nervous,' Mr. Mathias said. 'But I am anxious.'
Betty Yuan, head of the Northern California Chinese Culture-Athletic Federation, said earlier this week that she has been getting dozens of phone calls, many from Chinese-Americans upset with news reports of protesters.
She says she believes the majority of people supports the Olympic torch. 'The people that are going to the protest, they just are little but they make big noise,' says Ms. Yuan.
Community leaders, many of whom have protested themselves around issues like civil rights, say they don't dispute the protesters' right to demonstrate, nor do they agree with all of China's policies. But they fear that 'anti-China' sentiments will morph into 'anti-Chinese' violence.
'This is America. We cannot stop [protesters]. The only thing we can do is show up to show our support,' says Ms. Yuan, adding 'But we will outnumber them.'
Stephanie Kang / Jim Carlton / Bobby White
http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20080410/bus085017.asp?source=email
Posted by google at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)