China denied yesterday that it had violated the prohibition on politicizing the Olympics when a Tibetan official called for government opponents to be “smashed” to protect the Games next month.
The comments by Tibetan Communist Party chief Zhang Qingli (張慶黎) last weekend prompted a strong rebuke on Wednesday from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which told China to “separate sport and politics.”
While not directly referring to Zhang by name, a Chinese foreign ministry official denied that the key Olympic principle had been breached.
“I don’t think their purpose is to politicize the Olympics but rather to create a stable and harmonious environment for the Olympics,” spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told reporters.
“So you can’t say relevant remarks by relevant officials reflect a Chinese position of politicizing the Olympics,” he said.
Various groups have used the Games to spotlight China’s poor human rights record and alleged oppression in Tibet and other areas, prompting China to repeatedly stress how the Olympics should not be politicized.
Zhang’s comments followed a tightly controlled Olympic torch relay through the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Saturday.
“To bring more glory to the Olympic spirit, we should firmly smash the plots to ruin the Beijing Olympic Games by the Dalai [Lama] clique and hostile foreign forces inside and outside of the nation,” he said.
The IOC said it had written to Beijing organizers about Zhang’s comments, “reminding them of the need to separate sport and politics.”
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