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Beijing gets the Games

"The human rights problems remain an issue but it is more of a challenge and an opportunity ... to put sport at the service of mankind everywhere and maybe bring about some change." Dick Pound, IOC vice president PHOTO: AFP

Beijing won the 2008 Olympic Games for the world's most populous nation last night in a historic vote by the International Olym-pic Committee (IOC).

Despite worldwide concern at China's record on human rights, the IOC decided to award the summer Olympics to the country with one-fifth of the world's population.

Beijing, which lost the 2000 Games to Sydney by just two votes, defeated Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka. The Japanese city was eliminated in the first round with Beijing winning outright in the second round.

The decision was announced by IOC President Juan Antonio Sama-ranch who is stepping down after 21 years at the helm of the world's leading sports organization.

China has been criticized for jailing religious leaders and exactly one week ago the human rights group Amnesty International released figures showing 1,781 people had been executed in the past three months.

A confident, polished performance yesterday before the final presentation to the IOC underlined the professionalism of the Beijing bid.

On Thursday, bid organizers dealt unflinchingly with a series of questions about human rights at a news conference and promised full media freedom in 2008.

"I think we will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China," Wang Wei (王偉), secretary-general of the Beijing bid committee, told a news conference.

"We have made our guarantees in our bid document so all the world's media will be welcome to come to China."

IOC Vice President Dick Pound, a candidate to take over from Samaranch when the IOC votes on Monday, welcomed the decision.

Pound said members had been a little uneasy in 1993 because of the Tiananmen Square massacre four years earlier. The Chinese have since dropped a controversial plan to hold beach volleyball in the square.

"We got right up to the edge of the diving board in 1993 and I think people thought we were just a little too close to Tiananmen Square at that point," Pound said.

"Now it is eight years later. The human rights problems remain an issue but it is more of a challenge and an opportunity for the Olympic movement to make a contribution to some of its own goals -- which is to put sport at the service of mankind everywhere and maybe bring about some change."

The response of Taiwan's government to Beijing's victory was low-key. While the government said it was pleased to learn that Beijing had won its bid, it urged its neighbor to continue to uphold the spirit of the Olympic Games to help promote peace and be opposed to any aggressive acts.

"We hope that Beijing would use the peaceful spirit of the Olympic Games in its handling of cross-strait relations and renounce the use of force," said Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council. "Taiwan has not yet ruled out the possibility that China could use force against Taiwan in the future just because it has won the bid."

A close aide to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said that while the government is pleased with Beijing's victory, it was cautious as well, adding that with the victory, the entire world would now face a wave of China fever.

"If Taiwan also joins this trend and gave an overly positive reaction to Beijing's victory it would run the risk of misleading the international community that Tai-wan's stance had moved toward Beijing's `one China stance,'" the aide said.

Cheng Chih-fu (鄭志富), vice chairman of Taiwan's National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, said that as long as "the principles of equality and mutual benefits, as well as national dignity were upheld, [Taiwan] would be willing to accept [Beijing's offer]," to let the torch pass through Taiwan.

In London, Amnesty International said that China had to improve its human rights policies now that it has been awarded the Games.

"The Chinese government must prove it is worthy of staging the Games [in Beijing] by upholding their Olympic spirit of fair play and extending respect for universal, fundamental, ethical principles to the people of China," Amnesty said in a statement.

Beijing was so confident of winning the right to host the Olympics it had printed millions of commemorative stamps ahead of the vote, a Hong Kong news report said.

The stamps will go on sale this morning in Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau, the South China Morning Post reported.

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