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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 8 I advise journalists to continue to do what they have been doing, but even more so. They should focus not just on China's repressive policies toward the Tibetans or the Uighurs, but toward its own people. They should call on China's leaders to live up not only to their international commitments, but also to the stipulations in China's own constitution, whose Article 43 calls for freedom of speech and press. And they should continue to question Chinese officials about journalist colleagues in prison. Journalists, who are read by millions, can have a great impact on what happens in China and be a powerful force in the struggle for human rights - much more so than professors, whose books are read by a few other professors and, maybe, their students. At the same time as they report on China's growing economic, military and international stature, journalists should also describe the discontent, repression and environmental degradation that have accompanied the country's economic development and that have worsened in recent years. Reporters at the Olympics in Beijing should not only point out China's rise as a modern great power, should not only describe the athletic achievements, and not only report on China's denial of freedom to the Tibetans and Uighurs, they should write about the denial of freedom to its own citizens. In this age of globalization, the international media have a major role to play in showing that no matter how powerful the country may become, its human rights violations against minorities and especially its own people cannot be hidden. The media's exposure of China's human rights violations can help exert international pressure on China to live up to its own international commitments. China does respond to outside pressure as seen with its signing of the two UN covenants. We should continue to engage with China, participate in the Olympics, and speak in a moderate voice, but we should also continue to criticize China's human rights abuses. We should emphatically point out the failure of China's government to fulfil its own voluntarily made promises to improve rights in order to win its bid to host the Olympics. There is a danger that China's tight controls and suppression of human rights advocates, imposed to ensure stability and peace for the Olympics may once the Games are over become the new norm. Even more worrisome is that the worldwide protests against China's policies in Tibet and Xinjiang have sparked a virile form of nationalism among China's youth, who have vociferously expressed public antagonism toward foreign critics and efforts to boycott the Olympics. Of the public intellectuals who signed the petition against China's policy in Tibet, not one was below the age of 30. Despite the explosion of antagonism expressed by the youth against Western critics, we have to accept the fact that China has once again become a major power and we should do all we can to incorporate it into the world community, not only economically, but politically and culturally. The West must stay engaged in dialogue with Chinese leaders, no matter how tense the relationship may become. Otherwise, instead of the 2008 Olympics marking China's recognition as a modern power, it may come to enshrine hostility to the modern world it so wants to join.
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 9 Panel 1 Press freedom and the Beijing Olympics moderator: Alberto Ibarguen President, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation China and IOC: Falling short on their pledges Paul Steiger Chair, Committee to Protect Journalists Our concern with the media situation in the runup to the Beijing Olympic Games is simple: Neither China nor the International Olympic Committee have fulfilled the pledges they made in 2001 that China’s media would be free and open in time for the Games. On the day before the Olympics were awarded in July 2001, the Beijing Organizing Committee promised the media “complete freedom” before and during the Games. Specifically, China said in making its official bid, “There will be no restrictions on journalists in reporting on the Olympic Games.” Not only have China and the IOC failed to live up to that promise, China has actually moved away from fulfilling it. Although some rules have been lifted for foreign journalists, their Chinese colleagues face tighter than usual restrictions on their reporting. We have seen the restrictions slapped on foreign journalists trying to report on the demonstrations and ensuing ethnic violence in Tibet and surrounding provinces and regions in March. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China says it has been informed of more than 180 incidents of harassment of colleagues since it started keeping a tally last year. For Chinese journalists, the Central Propaganda Department’s censorship machine is running at the higher level it uses to control news flow during critical party congresses and national legislative assemblies, when the government wants to stifle all criticism and put on a display of national unity. And even though there has been a flurry of releases earlier this year, China continues to hold 24 journalists behind bars, the largest number of any country in the world. These restrictions persist despite the growth of commercialized Chinese media which regularly press the limits of government restrictions, while their readers increasingly demand accurate, timely information. The press freedom situation is aggravated by the apparent reluctance of the International Olympic Committee to press China to meet its pledges. When it does discuss the media issue, the committee makes tone-deaf statements like: “It is not within our mandate to act as an agent for concerned groups. Journalists are imprisoned all over the world, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons.” That was an answer the IOC
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