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August 19, 2008

Michael Goes to the Olympics

The Bird's Nest, Beijing, August 18, 2008.

The fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt of Jamaica, August 18, 2008.

Team USA sweeps the 400m hurdles, August 18, 2008.

Russia's Yelena Isinbaeva sets a new pole vault world record at 5.05m, August 18, 2008.

The Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, August 18, 2008.

Photos from last night's evening at the Bird's Nest. We bought our front-row tickets, originally marked at Y800, for just Y1,000 from an American scalper... thanks, dude from Tampa!

The sidewalk outside the southwest corner of the Olympic Green is the place to go if you still want to get tickets. (Look for the crowd under the footbridge.) Arrive a couple of hours before the event, and jump into the fray! Be prepared to bargain hard.

Also, I forgot to mention to those of you who can read German... check out "Ich benutze Umwege" on Zoomer. It's an interview with me about this blog, translated into German. You can read a version translated back into English by a computer here.

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posted August 19, 2008 at 10:44 AM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!

Comments

*Michael was deemed not attractive enough so the person you see in the photo is actually a 12 year old Han kid. The background is fake too and the photographer had his camera confiscated afterwards for pointing it in the general direction of Tianenmen Square.

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 19, 2008 12:50 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

sexy guy

The comment above was posted by spec at August 19, 2008 02:08 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

again a fake. theres nothing real in this olympics.

The comment above was posted by Leo at August 19, 2008 04:13 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

I see some of these comments are bought forth with hate and China bashing. Well it is also in line with main stream thinking in the West towards China. *Sigh!

The comment above was posted by Dkt at August 19, 2008 05:37 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Dkt, remove the carrot from your pigu. It was made in jest. You guys gotta learn to laugh at yourselves sometimes... geez.

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 19, 2008 05:52 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@dkt

the only people who get China 'bashed' are absolute myopic egg heads like yourself. You bring it on yourself. Its nothing to do with China. It belongs to all general world-class ignoramus. How long, how long... Sigh...sigh...

The comment above was posted by spec at August 20, 2008 04:45 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

I agree leo.
I don't believe the Olympic games and the orgnizations.

Would the officers of the Olympic_orgnizations feel sorry about helped the Nazi's nationalism strategy in 1936?

Would they feel sorry ignoring the Soviet Union athlete who took drugs for medals?

No they wouldn't.
They just try to tell people how successful the games was held, how many world records are broken, how the Olympic spirits are working...

Let's take an assumption:
1、China's athletes took drugs for more golden medals under the governments' shelter.
2、The olympic officers would ignore it because they want an "successful" game.

This is a "double win" for both of them.
Ok,Is it the real reason that so many world records were broken?

Is it the real reason that China surpassed the USA team so far on the golden medals ranking list?

we don't know now, and it may be a secret forever

The comment above was posted by miloservic at August 20, 2008 07:46 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

how did you even get to the olympic park? you cant take the subway or even get close to the staidum without tickets.

i am trying to find taekwondo tickets if anyone can help me.

The comment above was posted by yoodle at August 20, 2008 02:50 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

I don't think that Chinese government offers shelter for their athletes taking drugs.Chinese government has paid a great quanity of money for the Olympics and for the training of their athletes,so China got so many gold medals is reasonable...
If some Chinese athletes take drugs,it must be a shame for all Chinese people!

The comment above was posted by Blue sky at August 20, 2008 04:47 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@milo - if any Chinese athlete were found to have taken drugs it would probably be a programme of cultural re-education for him/her. After all the PRC govt has made of the event the embarrassment would be too much.

The comment above was posted by 克莱夫 at August 20, 2008 08:56 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@yoodle: You just can't take the subway into the Olympic Green without tickets, because the exit is beyond the security checks I believe... so you probably have to go through security somewhere in a subway station.

I just took a taxi to the southwest corner and hopped out. There are no restrictions on people outside the fence.

If you want taekwondo tickets, just go to the venue two hours early. You'll find some no problem I'm sure.

The comment above was posted by michael at August 20, 2008 09:11 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

miloservic:
我假设你和你的民族都是反人类的伊斯兰恐怖分子。我只是假设,假设没错吧?

The comment above was posted by an assumption at August 20, 2008 09:58 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Please try to keep all comments in English!

The comment above was posted by michael at August 20, 2008 10:39 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Love the jump photo in front of the birds nest, and how close were you to take the other shots? Insanity.

Presumably since I don't remember seeing any pole vault or relay race you were at the morning session- but then it didn't get dark until after we were in the stadium. Hmmm.

Anyway good stuff and thanks for commenting on my Shanghaiist post

The comment above was posted by Swiss James at August 21, 2008 08:00 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

I've just realised when the 18th August actually was. Not the same day I was there!

The comment above was posted by Swiss James at August 21, 2008 08:03 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

I spose another aspect of the soon to come deployment of several eastern based PLA armies to Xinjiang could be serendipity: a means for China to beef up its military presence on the edges of the CA states at a time when Russia is bellicose in the Caucusus and the Yanks dont seem to be backing down. Go the SCO. Uyghur knives surely arent the only reason for this coming military deployment recently mentioned by Willy Wo Lap lam.

The comment above was posted by spec at August 21, 2008 12:22 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

More Americans held as China steps up scrutiny
Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:57pm EDT Reuters


The Committee to Protect Journalists said China had blocked more than 50 Web sites carrying news or advocating on behalf of pro-Tibetan groups, including the group's site (http://www.cpj.org), before the Games began, reneging on pre-Olympics promises of Internet freedoms.

A member of Students for a Free Tibet said the group had experienced cyberattacks aimed at making its U.S. Web site hard to use.

New York-based Human Rights in China says 24 protesters -- critics of the Communist Party and their family members -- were detained or put under watch before the Olympics opened.

Beijing resident Dong Jiqin said his wife Ni Yulan was jailed in April when authorities began clearing out activists and others they felt may draw media attention away from the Games.

"I cannot watch the Games," Dong said from his cluttered apartment in the heart of the capital. "I'm afraid my wife isn't safe. We think the Olympics should be held, but I am just not in the mood to watch it."

In another case, petitioners Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, were sentenced to one year of "re-education through labor" after repeatedly applying to demonstrate in areas set aside for protests during the Games, Human Rights in China said.

"In China, as in other countries, applications for demonstrations must go through legal procedures," the Foreign Ministry's Qin said when asked about the two petitioners.

None of dozens of applications to protest has been approved.

"They wanted to see us stuck in jail so the Olympics would look better," Dong said.

(Additional reporting by Gary Crosse in New York)

The comment above was posted by spec at August 21, 2008 12:28 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@Swiss James: First row! Nothing between us and the athletes but a bunch of photographers. It was very sweet.

The comment above was posted by michael at August 21, 2008 12:34 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

....destabilized pakistan, bears set loose in the caucusus, chinese military build up in xin, xinjiang vis a vis Uyghur blade threat.
Meanwhile, possible chinese massacre of 140 tibetans in eastern kham under cover of olympic spotlight according to his holiness.

The comment above was posted by roebuck at August 22, 2008 08:02 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

It just makes me so mad that the CCP are such egregious LIARS. Not one application to protest was approved, and those, i.e old ladies, who persisted have been jailed. How Abhorant... and how can anyone defend such repressive behaviour?

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 22, 2008 08:04 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@ jimba

manman can.

The comment above was posted by roebuck at August 22, 2008 08:22 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

China still requires political reform and democracy.
CCP govt. is not perfect nor another govts in this globe are without faults and not critized by their citizens.

The comment above was posted by Dkt at August 22, 2008 02:01 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Plz ignore this faked Slobo. Hes a faked fake.

The comment above was posted by Leo at August 22, 2008 11:37 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

"@Swiss James: First row! Nothing between us and the athletes but a bunch of photographers. It was very sweet."

I'm glad to see your status as China blogger has finally brought you the VIP seats so commonly associated with them.

As for why China is doing so well, it would be best to look at the dog that didn't bark. That is, look at the teams that aren't doing well. Take soccer. China is a soccer country, but it still didn't do very well. Or basketball. In fact, China's team sports in general aren't doing well. It also isn't doing well in sports that have professional rings.

The reason is that the Chinese government is perfectly willing and able to sink money into its sports that, frankly, people don't watch and aren't self supporting. This means those athletes are able to support themselves on their sport, while their competitors generally need jobs. This means the Chinese athletes have far more time and resources to train. On the other hand, the financial involvement in, say, a soccer team is so great that China can't get very much of a resource edge.

It isn't a question of drugs, it is a question of resource allocation. The Chinese government set out to gain the greatest number of medals, and it did that by investing the greatest amount in the greatest number of obscure sports.

To sum up, China didn't gain an illicit advantage, it simply capitalized on its ability to create the best athletes. in a wide variety of disciplines.

The comment above was posted by Tiako at August 23, 2008 01:56 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.


@Michael

Glauben Sie nicht dass ich, ein chinese, deutch auch spreche. Ich habe deutch schon langst nicht gesprochen. Aber ich lese noch manchmal deutche Zeitungen. Warum? Fur sechs yahre wohnte ich in Deutchland. (do you talk like that in yidish too?)

In Shanghai there is a german club. People, whether chinese or not, in the club all speak fluent german.

In recent history, modern chinese communist leaders like premier Zhou Enlai, and Marshall Zhu De (founder of Chinese Red Army) all can speak german.

Do you have a computer program to translate those pasages between german and english? I think the translation is a bit awkward. It needs some touch-ups. Otherwise it's OK.

The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 23, 2008 05:40 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@Michael

P.S. I am very impressed with your pictures. How many mega pixel do you have? Did you use telelens? and did you reframe them?

Keep up your good work!

Enjoy!


The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 23, 2008 09:05 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@Tiako: Also I might add that the athlete program China has put into this Olympics is second to none in its history; but similar to what a lot of host nations do when they are awarded the Olympics. Suddenly sport becomes a national priority and the athletes find themselves resourced to the hilt. Australia had a similar program prior to Sydney 2000. Australia's medal count has slowly declined since then. And look at England now, where have they suddenly come from? Expect more from them in London 2012.


I tend to think that team events, especially the big games, are the last to benefit from this because the majority are usually overseas in their respective leagues and their focus is seasonal and club orientated as opposed to Olympic and country representation. World tournaments often have greater salience too. Another factor I believe hinders teams and their players are team formation: time, dynamics and disparate attention than say individual medalists. One last thing, similar to why you won’t find many African-American diving Olympic champions, you will probably be hard up to see many Chinese teams winning gold in the more physical sports such as football, basketball etc. To be sure there are individuals who are world class, but I believe that in general they lack maybe the strength of other teams, which does have an impact at the world level.

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 23, 2008 09:11 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

The result is sooooo satisfactory -- America is still number ONE in total medals. A confident America is much more friendly to people of China.
China can achieve the second because it's both rich enough and poor enough -- rich enough so that it affords to send althetes overseas to train and poor enough so that many people are willing to be professional athletes, which is very hard and boring career. For them Olympic dream = American dream.

The comment above was posted by chengduboy at August 23, 2008 09:35 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

miloservic:
我假设你和你的民族都是反人类的伊斯兰恐怖分子。我只是假设,假设没错吧?
-----------------------
...
1、I am a Han.
2、If you raise an assumption,that's just the second step of a process of logic thing.
you have to prove it or disprove it.
But you here ask me "The assumption is right?"
So please read the the first thing I wrote

The comment above was posted by miloservic at August 24, 2008 03:30 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@Jonathan: I was using my friend's Canon G9, becuase my camera is broken. It's a high-end compact camera, but nothing that special. The key was being really close to the action.

The comment above was posted by mmichael at August 25, 2008 04:31 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

frickin awesome, living the high life. u rock.

The comment above was posted by jewboyfromnyc at August 26, 2008 05:37 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

r the olympics over yet?

This is an interesting article from a non western news source, Qantara.de, on the IMU and an Uzbek-Turkish Al Qaida.

http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-973/i.html?PHPSESSID=54dd3fe0ab46fbcae4c88fd8753c70eb

also articles on the Uyghur attack upon Kuqa

http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1022/i.html


and on Muslims in Tibet, namely the Turkic speaking Salar.

http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-956/i.html?PHPSESSID=54dd3fe0ab46fbcae4c88fd8753c70eb


interesting articles with some wrongly captioned (non-fake) pics but hey...there are worse things going on in an increasingly fake world.

The comment above was posted by spec at August 26, 2008 04:23 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Dalai Lama denies Tibet massacre quote

August 22, 2008

PARIS: The Dalai Lama has denied telling a French newspaper that Chinese soldiers may have shot dead 140 Tibetan protesters on Monday.
The exiled spiritual leader was quoted in Le Monde as saying troops fired on protesters on Monday and 400 people have been killed since unrest erupted in March.

But his office said he denied a comment attributed to him by Le Monde that 140 people had died on Monday when the Chinese security forces opened fire. His office said there were casualties.

“The Chinese army again fired on a crowd on Monday August 18, in the Kham region in eastern Tibet,” said the Nobel Peace prize winner who is on a 12-day visit to France.

Le Monde quoted him as saying that up to 140 people had been killed, though the figure was not confirmed.

“His Holiness did not mention any number of casualties,” his office said in a statement after the interview was published, adding that “he clearly stated that we had no specific information on the number of casualties.”

The Dalai Lama's representative in Geneva, Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, said the protest was in Garze, a Tibetan-populated town in China's southwest Sichuan province which is part of the Kham region.

“Definitely, Chinese security forces were firing (at protesters),” he told AFP, citing one “reliable” source.

“We have been told that there have been casualties but we are not able to verify what casualties means, whether people have been killed or whether they have been injured,” he said.

In his interview with Le Monde, the Dalai Lama said that since March “reliable witnesses say that 400 people have been killed in the region of (the Tibetan capital) Lhasa alone.”

“Killed by bullets, even though they were protesting without weapons. Their bodies were never given back to their families. If you consider the whole of Tibet, the number of victims is obviously higher,” he said.

“Ten thousand people have been arrested. We don't know where they are imprisoned,” said the 73-year-old Dalai Lama.

Unrest erupted in Lhasa in March after four days of protests against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama said it looked as though Chinese security forces were planning to continue their crackdown for many years and there had been a “frenzy” of new military camps built in the Amdo and Kham regions.

“A project of long-term brutal repression is under way.”

He said that in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics he had been hopeful of progress, encouraged by the commitment of Chinese President Hu Jintao to begin serious talks.

“But we were quickly disillusioned. Our envoys came up against a wall. There was no opening,” he said, adding that autonomy and not independence remained his goal for Tibet.

“Real autonomy, because we know what Chinese-style autonomy is: a trap.”

The Dalai Lama repeated in his Le Monde interview that his visit to France was not political.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has refused to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, but the Dalai Lama said he hoped Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, would “make constructive propositions to the Chinese government” when the Olympics are over.

The Tibetan leader is to meet with Sarkozy's pop star wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Friday.

China warned France yesterday to prudently deal with the “important and sensitive” issue of Tibet.

China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 and officially “liberated” it the following year. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet and of fomenting unrest. The spiritual leader insists he wants autonomy and religious freedom rather than independence.

AFP

The comment above was posted by spec at August 26, 2008 04:30 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Despite everything is "fakery" in china(!?@!), this following report is not fake.

According to a survey conducted in 2004, about 30 % of Xinjiang villages and administrative districts were not accessible by phones. This severely hinders the development of community economics and the living standard of local ethnic groups.

Since then the Bureau of Communication of XJ Auto. Reg. through introduction of microwave technology, satellite stations and the laying of 124 thousand km. of optical fiber cables, managed to achieve 100 % telephone accessibility.

Not only 73.1 % of the population can be reached instantly, but also other conveniences like turning on the water irrigation of huge cotton fields remotely by dialing on a cellular phone, carrying on conversation face to face with the other party, conducting agricultural commodity transactions by a clicking of a mouse...etc can all easily be done.

Xinjiang now also employs "broad band" techology like in Hong Kong, ahead of United States.

Politics has been cited mainly for the "lag-behind" of such techonology in the United States.


The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 27, 2008 04:04 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Fantastic because of this great development the CCP can justifiably flood Xinjiang with Han Chinese immigrants and the Uyghur will need be nothing but thankful for the great technological blessing elder brother Han has brought to them.

Of course if they are not thankful, quiescent and jim jim quiet there is always the labour camp on the edge of the Taklamakan. Thanks Jonathon I now have hope for the future of the Uyghur in the great Chinese motherland. Telephones is all they need.

The comment above was posted by spec at August 27, 2008 05:06 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Right, well, still on topic...kinda. I would be interested to hear some Chinese perspective on this one.

Was the Beijing games the best ever? The 2000 Sydney games were called "The Best Ever"; The 2004 Athens Games were called "The "most exceptional"; and now in 2008 the Beijing Olympics have been dubbed, "truly exceptional". Yet, China's propoganda machines have been working overtime to transform this unremarkable assessment into "The Best Games EVER!!!!!!!"

This from The Australian:

"But when Mr Rogge made his declaration on Sunday night, the Chinese characters that flashed up on the huge screens, and the translation given by commentators in Chinese for the hundreds of millions of TV viewers throughout China, were wu yi lun bi.

The standard definition of this phrase is "unparalleled" -- or, of course, "best ever".

From the official news agency Xinhua to the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily to China Youth Daily and local newspapers around the country, headlines were dominated yesterday by the characters wu yi lun bi.

Xinhua even transmitted a story citing American, European, Japanese and Taiwanese media reports on the 16 days of the Games, saying "world media praise Beijing Olympics as 'wu yi lun bi"'.

Thus, with some sleight of translation, the Chinese authorities have ensured that the zeitgeist of the Olympics, the psychic heritage, will be entrenched in Chinese people's minds as unremittingly positive.

Beijing always wanted "best ever". And even though Mr Rogge pledged, as soon as he succeeded Mr Samaranch in 2001, that he would not use that phrase, he has -- in terms of China -- said it."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24242536-5016653,00.html

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 27, 2008 08:14 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

"Xinjiang now also employs "broad band" techology like in Hong Kong, ahead of United States."

Are you talking about broadband internet access? Yeah, that's been in the US for about a decade. I'm using it right this very moment.

Ignoring for a second that you just claimed that the US, the technology capitol of the world, is lagging behind China's backwater technologically, you do realize that broadband access is done by private companies here, don't you?

The comment above was posted by Tiako at August 27, 2008 08:46 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

remember "transistor radio"?

It was the americans who invented the transistor radio. But it was Sony which popularized the transistor radio and made fortune "because of it".

Go buy some Tellabs's stocks. (stock symbol: TLAB, an american company) That company is on the verge of collapse.


The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 27, 2008 11:07 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Jonathon what are you on about? What bloody nonsense you come up with. Which particular propaganda department do you work for? Its tiresome the kind of rubbish you just posted in your last post; and may I say 'off track' as well.

The comment above was posted by spec at August 27, 2008 02:11 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.


@Tiako

Dr.Charles Kao, a graduate of Unversity of London, pioneered the optical fiber technology (broad band included). He is a recipient of pretigious american IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Award, done research work at STL in England. Was a director of research at ITT in United States, Vice Chancellor of Unversity of Hong Kong. Is currently chairman and CEO of ITX in Hong Kong with many patents under his belt.

Are you to say chinese have no brain? Incapable of any inovation and inventions? Only U.S deserves to be called "technology capital of the world?


The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 27, 2008 02:55 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

P.S.:

1. In the entire world now only Hong Kong and one of the three Baltic countries are truly "completely", I mean "completely", broad bandband equiped. Of course Xinjiang just join the crowd.

2. Tellab is a leader in the manufacturing of broadband equipments in the telecommunication industry.

The comment above was posted by Jonathan at August 27, 2008 03:42 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@ Jonathon

what are you trying to prove here? That China is great? Isnt that extremely insecure of you? Are you suffering from an insecurity complex and projectijng your feelings of inadequacy across the globe via this blog?

The comment above was posted by roebuck at August 27, 2008 05:16 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Jonathon said:

"Are you to say chinese have no brain? Incapable of any inovation and inventions? Only U.S deserves to be called "technology capital of the world?"

Ha! China doesn't need to invent anything. They just wait until someone else does and then copies it. This is not brainless at all. Although I do believe your education system is a bulwark against innovative thinking.

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 27, 2008 05:29 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Jonathon said:

"Are you to say chinese have no brain? Incapable of any inovation and inventions? Only U.S deserves to be called "technology capital of the world?"

Ha! Jonathon, the Chinese have a global reputation for being a little lagging when it comes to technology innovation. Let's be clear here: taking a new technology, dismantling it and then reproducing it with a Chinese sticker is not innovation. China is well known for this.
This is a product on your education system in the first, and group conformity in the second; where creative thinking is admonished.

The comment above was posted by Jimba at August 27, 2008 05:43 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Alright Jonathon, first off, no, I don't think The Chinese have no brain. I have no clue where you got that from my post, but your saying that makes me thing that it isn't the size of their brain but the thickness of their skin that is the problem with Chinese. But to address your points:

Yes, tellabs isn't doing as well as it had. That doesn't reflect one whit upon America's status as the technology capitol. It's one company, and the economy is in a downturn, and it's the goddamn stock market.

Yes, the Chinese have developed things. I never once denied that. That doesn't mean the US isn't the technology capitol of the world.

Now, as for broadband connectivity, you might care to note that Hong Kong is 1,104 km². The US is 9,826,630 km² (China is slightly smaller if you exclude Taiwan, and really, you should). Now, Xinjiang is in a desert, which means it is relatively easy for China to provide broadband access throughout (and insure that its native population can't afford it).

The comment above was posted by Tiako at August 27, 2008 09:51 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@ Tiako.

"(China is slightly smaller if you exclude Taiwan, and really, you should). Now, Xinjiang is in a desert, which means it is relatively easy for China to provide broadband access throughout (and insure that its native population can't afford it).


Thanks for this brilliant line which really says it all. Yes there may be broad band but which particular impoverished Uyghur farmers can afford it? So much for Jonathon's propaganda piece. He's probabaly never been to Xinjiang and thinks everyone there is well off. Or should be according to the party line. Ha! Thanks.

The comment above was posted by spec at August 28, 2008 03:45 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/376376_teepenonline26.html

Human rights and Beijing's Olympic hustle

Last updated August 25, 2008 11:17 a.m. PT

TOM TEEPEN

Those were some swell Olympics in Beijing. There was much exciting sport. Records were broken, many records. The opening ceremony was about as spectacular an event as you are likely ever to see. China got every bit of the public relations boost that it spent $40 billion for.

Of course, even the greatest of accomplishments and moments turn up a few soreheads at their margins. Thus the case of Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77.

Wu and Wang have had a beef with the Chinese authorities ever since the government took their decidedly modest homes in 2001 for a redevelopment scheme near the Olympic venues. The women were promised either apartments in new buildings or financial compensation.

Neither, they say, has materialized, and the two are living in ramshackle quarters on the capital city's shabby fringe. They decided to take their complaint to the world. To secure the Olympics, Chinese authorities promised the International Olympic Committee that they would lighten up.

Oh, China would keep good civic order, of course, but the usual political repression would be lifted, at least for the duration. And, in fact, three protest sites were set aside for demonstrators and a simple permit process was set up.

Seventy-seven permit applications were made. None was granted. At least six of the applicants were arrested. Others -- no one seems to know how many -- simply disappeared, for how long or where to are anybody's guess.

The police and courts were especially fed up with the two old women, who had been pestering them for years. The two were sentenced to a year of punishment labor, by way of their "re-education." Both walk with canes. Wang is blind in one eye.

At last report, the sentence was being held in abeyance, on condition of the women's good behavior, but with the international press decamping and the world's attention turning elsewhere, who knows what is in store for them. Probably not apartments in new buildings.

IOC President Jacques Rogge has pronounced himself disappointed that China didn't live up better to its pledge to greatly improve its human rights demeanor for the games. Disappointed, but probably not very surprised. The Olympic committee is an old hand at living with such disappointments.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics proceeded untroubled that Hitler was obviously rearming for another war, that the Nazis had enacted their anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws the year before and that the world had seen, in the classic, chilling propaganda film "Triumph of the Will," the German fascist mania in full strut and rant.

The 1980 Moscow Olympics paid no official heed to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan the year before. To their credit, some 60 nations did sit those games out, in a boycott promoted by President Jimmy Carter by way of rebuke to the Kremlin. The IOC deplored their gesture.

The committee that holds the Olympic franchise loves to rattle on about "Olympism," which means -- well, healing the world through sport, or something like that.

In truth, the Olympics are a huge money hustle, with corporate and national recognition and apparent prestige on the block and the bidding in billions of dollars. By all means, let the games go on. They do no obvious harm. The athletics are terrific. And the Madames Wu and Wang were past competing age anyway.

Tom Teepen is a columnist for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Atlanta. E-mail: teepencolumn@earthlink.net.

© 1998-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The comment above was posted by spec at August 28, 2008 04:53 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

In 2004, New York police arrested 1,800 protestors. I watched some of them being arrested for banging a drum in midtown.

All were detained and held for hours, if not more, while processed.

More than 90% of them had their charges dropped. The city is being forced to pay settlements to those who had charges dropped. They were Americans protesting American issues in an American city known for its progressiveness.

So Chinese authorities have a long way to go before they can match New York City in terms of denying protestors their human rights.

Hypocrisy is a bitch.

The comment above was posted by Bobbo at August 28, 2008 06:46 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@ Bobbo

were they tortured and beaten as well?

The comment above was posted by spec at August 28, 2008 07:16 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

"So Chinese authorities have a long way to go before they can match New York City in terms of denying protesters their human rights."

Are you listening to yourself? In New York, an overzealous police chief arrested a group of protesters for a few hours. It was later decided that the city was at fault and is paying compensation. Incidentally, could you link me to the story? I'm curious about it.

Then you see what the Chinese did. If you bother to read the article, it states that merely for applying for a permit to hold a protest, six were arrested indefinitely and several have been disappeared. It then mentions that two old women were sentenced to forced labor for having the gall to apply to a permit.

It's a long article, so I don't fault you for not reading it, but damn, at the very least you could read your own post.

The comment above was posted by Tiako at August 28, 2008 10:04 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

@Tiako

"China is slightly smaller than the USA if you exclude Taiwan". Actually, China is smaller than the USA whether you exclude or include Taiwan". Check "The CIA World Factbook".

The comment above was posted by Arjun at August 29, 2008 06:51 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

Huh. I was misinformed, then.

The comment above was posted by Tiako at August 31, 2008 08:15 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

The comment above was posted by sohbet at March 21, 2009 06:04 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

This last olympics, CHina did gaina lot of name as never before.

seavegg | sea weed | sea grass

The comment above was posted by Underwater plants at November 8, 2009 02:03 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.

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The comment above was posted by klsdlkj at January 16, 2010 08:30 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

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