What would it have taken for China to avoid the onslaught of criticism that has rained on its Olympic parade? Just days into the Games that China has spent seven years preparing as a symbol of its rising strength and wealth, concern about Beijing’s iron grip on basic freedoms continues to cast a shadow on the celebration.
What has become a public relations disaster for Beijing might have been stemmed with some key — if ultimately insincere — concessions to its critics. Instead, the Games have again illustrated China’s poor understanding of what makes the free world tick.
Even basic public relations in dealing with the West seem to elude its decision-makers. China never stood to gain from blocking “sensitive” Web sites at its foreign media center, a move that was bound to spark an outcry. The majority of the thousands of international reporters covering the Games come from countries with unfettered Web access. They very likely had no interest in spending their time in Beijing browsing Falun Gong Web sites. Censoring the Web, however, quickly turned Beijing’s fear of international news sites and repression of dissident voices into a top story just a week before the opening ceremony.
The ensuing clash between Beijing and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — ending in the IOC backing down on uncensored Web access for reporters — only hammered this impression into the minds of a global audience.
With the Games now in full swing, the furor over media restrictions shows no sign of receding. Although Radio Free Asia received permission from the IOC to send two reporters to the Games, Beijing let its Chinese-speaking correspondent into the country, but blocked its Tibetan-speaking reporter. And despite reports of unrest in Xinjiang, journalists are being denied access, while two Japanese reporters were mistreated by police there last week.
China has been equally inept at presenting a positive face to Taiwanese spectators. Where a little respect would have gone a long way in building trust, Beijing instead rolled out the title Zhongguo Taibei in the lead-up to the Games, blocked Taiwanese cheerleaders from entering the country and insisted on referring to Taiwan’s “home team” advantage in Beijing.
From the day China bound itself to human rights pledges in exchange for hosting the 2008 Olympics, a barrage of criticism from activists of its rights record was inevitable. But offering even a few concessions would have helped China convince observers that it is making gradual progress.
The Duihua Foundation, arguably the group that has made the most progress in securing the release of prisoners of conscience in China, suggested Beijing offer a gesture of progress ahead of the Games. An “Olympic pardon” of long-term prisoners — freeing the remaining Tiananmen activists jailed since 1989 — could make a lasting, positive impression, Duihua argued.
Instead, Beijing has stepped up its “war on terrorism” and clamped down even more tightly on dissidents, particularly in the capital, carrying out a series of “clean-up” detentions and arrests to silence domestic critics in time for the Games.
Beijing must now deal with the consequences of its choice: an international community that has only grown more skeptical and is concerned that, rather than improving its record to meet Olympic pledges, China has backtracked on the freedoms that it grants its population.
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming
RSS