IHT: China’s genocide Olympics

By Nicholas D. Kristof
Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation. Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the UN military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”

This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior.

The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.

China provides Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block UN action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the United Nations itself.

Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked UN convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and UN professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the United Nations in its place.

Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the UN force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the United Nations to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the UN force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.

Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: An American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved.

Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited.

It’s true that since the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) began a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that UN peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan – it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the UN peacekeepers – and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.

Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.”

Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified – especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan – and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood.

Without his Chinese shield, Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.

I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide.

China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.

CNN: Human rights questions remain for China

* Story Highlights
* China has made promises on environmental issues tied to the 2008 Olympics
* IOC: Olympics will be “key moment” for China’s political development
* Human rights observers say social controls have tightened in China since 2001

By Niall Fraser
For CNN,January 23, 2008

HONG KONG, China (CNN) — With a year to go before the 2008 Olympics get under way, questions linger over China’s efforts to improve its human rights record.

Observers and pressure groups have criticized the efforts of the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since Beijing won the bid in 2001, rejecting assertions by both that the Games will lead to lasting positive change in the world’s most populous nation.

After praising Beijing’s preparations as “excellent across the board,” the IOC official charged with overseeing Beijing’s preparations, Hein Verbruggen, sparked further anger from advocacy groups with his recent comments that, “…the way the Games are being used as a platform for groups with political and social agendas is often regrettable.”

The International Federation for Human Rights claimed his remarks will “embolden” hard-line elements within the Chinese Communist Party to ignore international pressure over human rights promises. But the IOC says, there is a widespread misconception that a list of “human rights promises” was ever sought by the IOC in the first place.

“There were some declarations made by senior Chinese leaders in Beijing who raised the human-rights question proactively and talked about how the Games would be part of the process to help human rights development,” says IOC’s director of communications Giselle Davies,. “But that was never a [piece of] criteria on which the IOC judged and assessed Beijing’s bid.

“The IOC decision is not made in a political or social context. It is very much based around what is a coming together at a sporting event and everything for which that can be a catalyst for,” Davies adds.

And that, she believes, is a force for good. “The IOC fundamentally believes that the world will look back and see the Games as a key moment along a period of change and development for good in China,” she says.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has sharply criticized Beijing. On Thursday, the organization said China’s government has failed to live up to pre-Olympics promises of greater human rights freedoms and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, according to reports from The Associated Press.

“The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China’s leaders apparently don’t realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing,” Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement carried by the AP

On first glance it would appear Beijing is sensitive to certain international concerns. In June, Chinese officials and the IOC moved quickly to launch an investigation into allegations by the advocacy group Playfair 2008 that four official souvenir makers were using child labor. Earlier that month, Beijing took the landmark step of allowing the mother of a victim of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown to mark the anniversary of his death publicly.

But others believe that since 2001 there has been a tightening of controls on political dissent and freedom of speech, as Beijing has sought to contain the social and political fall-out from the country’s breakneck economic development.

The IOC says, for example, that the Olympic Games has led to improvements in China’s labor system in which workers endure long hours in harsh conditions for less than the legal minimum wage.

Han Dongfang, the Hong Kong-based labor rights activist for the China Labour Bulletin organization, which monitors workers’ rights in China, insists “It’s about markets and it’s about cheap labor … Labor rights have become worse over the past few years.”

He says that any real change in China can only come from the inside as a result of pressure from workers and the development of free trade unions and the right to collective bargaining — and not from international pressure.

“The Chinese leadership does not care about international pressure. It is not China who is knocking at the door of the international community looking for favors — it is the other way around,” Han says.

The IOC says “enormous” progress has been made in terms of the freedom the news media will have to report on the Olympics, following the 2001 pledge by the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee Wang Wei. “We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China,” he said at the time.

Not so, says veteran China scholar Willy Wo Lap Lam, author of the recently published “Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era.”

“The police and secret police departments in every city have lists of dissidents and ‘dangerous’ people who are not supposed to talk to the western media,” Lam says.

“So, instead of following these Western reporters around, the police will simply post more ‘guards’ outside the dwellings of ’suspect’ people in each city and county. They will ensure they can’t talk or work with western journalists.”

Professor Joseph Cheng of Hong Kong’s City University agrees with Lam. “China’s only concern as far as the Olympics is concerned is to showcase itself to the international community. To this end it will treat foreign journalists and visitors very well – but all the troublemakers will ‘disappear’,” he says.

“Twenty years ago they put trouble-makers under harsh house arrest or worse. Today, they give them a holiday. Either way, they won’t be speaking to foreign journalists.”

Lam adds that any pledges Beijing did actually make does not necessarily mean human rights will improve. “The main pledges made by Beijing are clearing up the environment and curbing traffic jams. Both of these are achievable through draconian methods,” Lam says.

Furthermore, while the world-at-large may be expecting an Olympics-led metamorphosis, the reality is very different, he says.

“Beijing will not relax controls over dissidents, NGOs as well as ‘agitators’ for Tibet or Xinjiang. There will be tighter surveillance of potential troublemakers,” Lam says.

“The South Korean Olympics in 1988 marked the beginning of genuine political liberalization. For China, it is a very different story. The Chinese Communist Party sees the Games as an opportunity to show the world China’s great achievements in the economy and infrastructure and to demonstrate their diplomatic clout. Internally, the Games will help the Party foster ‘internal cohesiveness’ using national pride to justify the Party’s ruling status.

“No Chinese Communist Party leader wants to use the Games as a juncture to push forward reforms.”

Beijing announces pre-Olympic social clean up

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Wednesday January 23, 2008

Guardian Unlimited
Beijing’s Olympic chief has ordered a social cleansing operation to clear the city of beggars, hawkers and prostitutes before the start of the event in August.

The planned relocation of “problem” residents and businesses is aimed at creating a salubrious image of the Chinese capital in time for the arrival of an estimated half a million tourists, athletes and journalists.

Among the targets will be homeless people, unregistered taxi drivers, mobile snack vendors and fronts for prostitution, such as hairdressing salons and karaoke parlours.

Amid fears of human rights abuses, Liu Qi, the head of the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, said police should exercise restraint in carrying out the clean-up orders.

“The problems of vagrants, beggars and unlicensed businesses must be solved before the Olympics,” he was quoted as saying in today’s Beijing News. “But in enforcing the law, [officers] must be civilised, they must explain their actions and be reasonable. They must not create social environment problems.”

The authorities previously announced plans to put migrant beggars and hawkers in special holding centres that will be expanded ahead of the Olympics. Such “undesirables” are kept at these facilities before being forcibly sent home.

Beijing is not the first host city to adopt such measures. Ahead of the last games in Athens, 2,700 Roma were reportedly evicted. Last year, a study by the UK’s Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions found that more than 2m people have been driven from their homes since 1988 to make way for the Olympics.

But the concerns are particularly great in China, where the authorities often used brutal tactics to clear people from their homes and stifle opposition.

Several petitioners and human rights advocates have been arrested in recent months in an apparent attempt to silence the government’s most outspoken critics ahead of the arrival of an estimated 30,000 foreign journalists.

Among the most prominent is Hu Jia, the Aids campaigner, who has not been seen since he was taken by police at the end of December. His wife Zeng Jinyan, and their newborn baby are under house arrest.

The heavy handed tactics cast a shadow on the positive image that China wants to project during the Games. Compared to the past, millions of people enjoy greater personal freedom and affluence.

China: Can the rabbit bound free of the forces of destruction?

China: Can the rabbit bound free of the forces of destruction?
Officially 2008 is the Chinese year of the rat, but if its booming economy is to avoid being mired in a global downturn, the country will have to pull a different animal out of its hat. Tessa Thorniley reports
Published: 06 January 2008
China: Can the rabbit bound free of the forces of destruction? Monuments to Mammon: but the boom in Beijing could be stopped in its tracks

There is a Chinese proverb about cunning that runs: “A sly rabbit will have three openings to its den.”

Few would argue against the wisdom of having good contingency plans in place, but on the flipside, the saying leaves open the possibility that even the slickest bunny could be caught out by a determined three-prong attack.

And China – according to several leading economists – is facing just such an onslaught. The attacks come from a shaky Wall Street and slower US economic growth, a tighter domestic money supply and, longer term, developing world cutbacks in investment. This unhappy trio of factors is expected to lead to a significant slowdown in the Chinese economy in 2008-09.

As the new year gets underway with the markets mired in a global credit crunch, the question being asked is whether the Chinese rabbit will be able to shake free from these threats in 2008 and continue to bound forward, or whether it will find itself trapped in a hole.

China is now a crucial part of the world economy – even international investment banks such as Morgan Stanley have turned to it for funding in the form of a $5bn (£2.5bn) cash injection from sovereign fund the China Investment Corporation. So the reverberations are likely to be felt globally and the signs are not looking good.

At the end of last year, the Asian Development Bank cut China’s GDPgrowth forecast to 10.5 per cent from 11.4 per cent in 2007. Several economists, such as Mingchun Sun, senior China economist at Lehman Brothers, go further, predicting that growth in 2008 will drop below double digits for the first time in six years. Mr Sun is forecasting Chinese GDP growth of 9.8 per cent this year.

“If it slips below 8 per cent – and I am forecasting 8.8 per cent in the fourth quarter this year – that will hit China very hard. There will be a negative output gap that would hit jobs. For China, growth of around 9 per cent is necessary for the economy to remain healthy,” says Mr Sun.

Most of the economic fears in the People’s Republic spring from concern about the slowdown in growth from its biggest source of demand: America. “While the US may not be China’s biggest trading partner now – that is Europe by a whisker – it is still the lynchpin of the global economy” says Stephen Green, senior economist at Standard Chartered.

“We have already seen export growth to the US from China slow from 35 per cent year-on-year to around 6 per cent. The forecasts for lower growth in China stem from expectations about falling exports.” Mr Green adds.

Combined with an expected slowdown in European growth – along with domestic measures designed to tighten Chinese banks’ lending, rising interest rates and a strengthening currency against the dollar – China is heading for some challenging times.

Fears are also growing that slowing exports will pop China’s investment bubble.

“So far, global growth and exports have masked the fact that there is severe overcapacity in China. Less exports, and inventory stockpiles could lead to aggressive price cuts, potentially hitting companies’ profitability and ability to repay bank loans,” says Mr Sun.

By the time China hosts the Olympic Games in August, the boom times within the current economic cycle could just be coming to an end. As China is the world’s second-largest economy and, according to the World Trade Organisation, is expected to overtake Germany as the world’s largest exporter this year, the global impact is likely to be marked.

Although its stock market had fallen back by around 15 per cent from its peak of 6,124.04 in mid-November, 2007 was still a record for flotations in China.

Chinese companies raised around $100bn through initial public offerings (IPOs), with an estimated $65m raised by A-share listings in Shanghai or Shenzhen and the bulk of the remainder via H-share listings in Hong Kong. By contrast, companies in the world’s other hot econ-omy, India, which also enjoyed a record year for IPOs, only raised a combined $7.7bn.

Despite the worries about the global economy, bankers expect a broader range of Chinese companies to try and tap the capital markets this year, after Petro China and China Shenhua Energy raised almost $18bn between them last year. However, they will not find it as easy as it was in 2007.

As reported on Xinhua, the state news agency, the primary task of China’s 2008 fiscal pol-icy is “to prevent the economy from becoming overheated and to guard against a shift from structural price rises to evident inflation”. Inflationary fears – stemming from China’s yawning trade surplus (of around $280bn) – prompted the central bank to raise interest rates for the sixth time in a year in December. In the previous month, inflation was running at 6.9 per cent, the highest for 11 years.

But if the forecasters are right, lower exports, a smaller trade surplus and a tighter money supply could quickly dampen any inflationary anxiety.

“Although last year there was concern about inflation, let’s not forget that not long ago China suffered several years of deflation. If the global slowdown takes hold and there is over-capacity, it is possible we could see deflation again in China in 2009,” says Mr Sun.

Last year, one of the biggest inflationary pressures was rocketing pork prices – which were up more than 50 per cent at their peak – after a disease called Blue Ear devastated herds. Food accounts for more than 30 per cent of China’s consumner price index basket – the collection of goods that is used to measure prices – compared with around 10 per cent for the UK.

“Pork prices fell back quite sharply after October. But they started to climb again at the end of December,” says Mr Green.

Property prices have shown an equally runaway tendency, up 30 per cent over the past year in hotspots such as Shanghai.

Soaring asset prices have prompted Beijing’s central planners to implement tighter monetary policy, not only by raising interest rates but also by boosting the ratio of reserves that banks must set aside as deposits.

While the Chinese authorities and the People’s Bank can do very little to prevent the widely anticipated American – or global – slowdown, the challenge facing them in 2008 will be to strike the right balance between reining in the econ-omy so it does not overheat, and not pulling back so hard that growth is stopped in its tracks.

As the US splutters, the world is hoping that this is a rabbit China can pull out of its hat.