“Not Lucky” Beijing Olympics
By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom
May 3, 2008
The opening ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics are less than 100 days away and already Chinese people are starting to say hosting the Olympics in China is, perhaps, “Not Lucky.”
In a nation and culture obsessed by luck, or as they say, “Good Fortune,” it is almost as if China’s luck has run out.
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Sidebar
Fu is one of the most popular Chinese characters used in the Chinese New Year. It means “luck” or “good fortune.” It is often posted upside down on the front door of a house or an apartment. The upside down fu means good luck came since the character for upsite down in Chinese sounds the same as the character for came.
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To show, in some small way, the depth of China’s love for “luck,” we offer this. Marking one year until the opening of the Beijing Olympics, last August 8, China started a massive public diplay in Tiananmen Square at the 8th hour, the 8th minute and the 8th second.
Next August 8, the opening of the Beijing Games will commence on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008 on the 8th second of the 8th minute after the 8 PM hour.
Eight is lucky in China!
The problem is, Tiananmen Square is no longer considered lucky.
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After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, widely known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, China’s state controlled communist media said that a student protest had been “disbursed.”
Unfortunately for China, there were many witnesses to that “disbursal” who lived to tell the tale. I even talked to some who had horror stories of Chinese repression that were easily verified and “fact checked” person to person. These folks were not lying. They were eye witnesses to repression of the harshest kind.
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So with the bad luck of Tiananmen overshadowing these Summer Games. we looked at several facets of China’s national life that seemed “Not Lucky” since the International Olympic Committee announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Summer Games. That announcement came in Moscow on July 13, 2001.
July 13 is “not lucky.”
The Associated Press reported, “The International Olympic Committee put aside human rights concerns in making their historic decision, hoping to foster further change in the world’s most populous country. In a gesture that has global, political and economic repercussions, China won the games for the first time in a landslide vote over Toronto, Paris, Istanbul, Turkey, and Osaka, Japan.”
But since that time China’s reputation in the eyes of the world is that of a stumbling bear, not the svelte athlete.
We review here some of China’s major difficulties and activities since 2001. There have been serious transportation and public safety problems, social maladies, a lack of freedoms other nations take for granted, a bewildered medical establishment, a burgeoning economy and a military in resurgence.
But overall, it seems, in a nation and culture preoccupied with “Good Fortune” or luck, the run up to the Olympics has been a “train wreck.”
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Hu Jintao
Just this last week, China witnessed a real train wreck on the railroad line serving the Olympic sailing venue at Qingdao.
The accident killed as many as 70 and put about 250 people in the hospital in east China’s Shandong province. It was the worst railroad accident to hit the nation in more than a decade.
The site of the accident, near the city of Zibo, is about 70 kilometres (44 miles) from Jinan.
The accident underscored the way many Chinese people view rules and regulations. The train engineer was speeding and perhaps as many as 100 of the dead and seriously injured were standing in the train car’s aisles. Rules clearly state that all passengers must be seated whenever that train is rolling. The train’s conductor was not enforcing the rules.
The engineer said he was speeding because he was late leaving his last station. The problem at the station involves a lack of supervision by railroad personnel who allowed passengers to mingle in confusion while they should have been queueing up for an orderly boarding of the train.
In a rare example to China’s ability to respond to a crisis quickly and with force, top officials and soldiers were immediately dispatched to Zibo, the site of Monday’s pre-dawn crash in eastern China’s Shandong province. Within hours, two railway officials were unceremoniously fired. A third rail official was fired a few days later.
Why such an impressive response by the communist government of China? Because the rail line will be chocked full of Olympic tourists (the Chinese hope) this August and China already has plenty of bad news negatively impacting the Olympics.
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Rescuers search for survivors of a train crash near the city of Zibo in eastern China’s Shandong province. The train collision that killed at least 66 people was caused by human error, state media reported citing preliminary investigations.(AFP)
Near above: This is what a Chinese train SHOULD look like….
Also this last week the official China news organization, Xinhua reported that a disease outbreak killed 22 children.
Reuters reported on May 2, 2008, “A deadly virus has spread rapidly in eastern China, killing at least 21 children and infecting nearly 3,000, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.”
“Enterovirus 71 began spreading in Fuyang in the eastern province of Anhui in early March but authorities only reported it publicly on Sunday, saying there had been 789 cases.”
“By Thursday, the number had risen to 2,946, Xinhua said.”
“Enteroviruses are spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain or its lining. There are no vaccines or antiviral agents available to treat or prevent the virus .”
“‘There was one more fatality on Thursday afternoon, so the latest death toll is 21,’ Xinhua said, citing Anhui’s health chief.”
“The delay in reporting the virus to the public has triggered heated discussion and criticism in the Chinese media, which said local government officials should be sacked.”
The delay in reporting a problem is prety common in China.
The Associated Press had this to report:
“China’s Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert Saturday calling for heightened efforts to control a virus that has caused the deaths of 22 children in one city and shows signs of spreading.”
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“Health bureaus around the country must step up monitoring for hand, foot and mouth disease following a ‘relatively large’ outbreak in the central city of Fuyang, the Health Ministry said in notices on its Web site.”
No drugs or medications have stopped the disease.
The ministry warned that cases were more numerous this year than in any recent years, and the peak for transmission would likely come in June and July.
The Olympics is set to open August 8, 2008. Talk about “not lucky.”
Tibet
China’s record on human rights in Tibet is abysmal. Despite the fact that China has been taking over Tibet and abusing the Tibetan people since the 1950s, many Westerners could not even find Tibet on a map until just this last year.
The impending Olympics in Beijing turned out to be a catalyst for Tibetan human rights activists of all kinds and from all over. And China was kind enough to provide a focal point in many countries in the form of the round-the-world Olympic torch run.
Anti-China protesers turned out in droves. All the hoopla gave China a terrific pre-Olympic black eye.
China tried to blame the aged holy man, the Dalai Lama. But he looks like a sympathetic man and not a terrorist to just about ever citizen of the world except the Chinese.
Above: Jin Jing, a Chinese Paralympic fencer, in a wheelchair closely protects her extinguished Olympic torch, after the start of the Olympic torch relay, in Paris. Jin Jing became a national hero in China for defending the Olympic torch from a pro-Tibet protester in Paris.
China’s Crisis Response Formula
Remember when China faced an epidemic of a disease called Severe Acute Reparatory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003?
The disease was terrible and killed many. But China’s handling of that affair showed how China responds in a crisis.
The China government has a three phase plan for dealing with a crisis. The food safety scandal gives us a perfect example.Phase one is denial, phase two is a flurry of activity that does little good but serves to distract the media, and phase three is the “come clean and solve (or at least seem to solve) the problem phase.”In 2003, China faced an epidemic of a disease called Severe Acute Reparatory Syndrome (SARS).
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As the story broke that the disease was reaching epidemic proportions in Vietnam and Singapore, China didn’t make a sound.
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Then China started issuing denials. Sure enough, after many denials of any medical problem in China, news reports began to come out of China that it, too, was experiencing SARS but that the problem was being competently managed. Phase two was on.
Near the end of the crisis China began to escort news people around hospitals and other facilities to demonstrate the professionalism and medical readiness of China’s system. Phase three.
It was then that many realized the government of China responded the same way to every crisis.
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I documented my conclusions in a Washington Times commentary on Sunday, May 4, 2003.
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Recall the Bird Flu crisis? Phases One, Two and Three were used again.
The bottom line is this: China has now established the unenviable record as a government that cannot be trusted in many cases: especially when a crisis darkens China’s door.
The World Health Organization estimated that only about 4% of China’s medical professionals were prepared for a disease like SARS. And the medical staff was severely undermanned.
Recall the Bird Flu crisis? Phases One, Two and Three were used again. Hey, when you have 1.3 Billion people you can’t have a complicated play book. And forget about innovation. When an American football quarterback would call an audible for perfectly valid reasons; China is stuck. The only question China’s government leaders face is, what Phase do you think we are in?
In the food and product safety crime during 2007, China again used its play-book.
But China launched Phase Three of the food safety scare early because there were other emergencies to handle. Hollywood big shots were already calling the 2008 Summer Olympics the “Genocide Games” because of China’s intransigence and denial of the genocide in Darfur.
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Darfur
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China is Sudan’s biggest business partner. In exchange for all sorts of aid and perks for President General Omar Bashir, China has humbly agreed to pump Sudan’s oil out of the African ground and sending it to China for refining. Because President General Bashir is a buddy of President Hu, China has agreed to be completely oblivious to what President Bush and others in the world community call the genocide in Darfur.
You see, President General Bashir has decided to eliminate however many millions of those intolerable people in Darfur he needs to in order to achieve his own Happiness.
There are a few small glitches, though, in President Hu’s current “Blindness to Darfur” strategy. The U.N. condemns it. The E.U. condemns it. NATO condemns it. Everybody condemns it. Both the Canadian Prime Minister and the King of Sweden and his PM spoke to Hu about it in the course of ten days in June 2007. But President Hu, being “who” he is, can probably blow off the entire world, which he has been doing. One small fly in the ointment: Hollywood stars that are starting to refer to Beijing 2008 as the “Genocide Games.”
Displaced Sudanese children eat at the Sakali Displaced Persons camp in the city of Nyala in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, February 2007. China must persuade Sudan to halt atrocities in Darfur and reduce executions on its home soil if next year’s Olympics are to be successful, a leading US human rights activist said Thursday.(AFP/File/Mustafa Ozer)
Refugees from Darfur living in an encampment in Chad.
Since Beijing won the right to host the Games it has always tried to keep China’s politics and China’s Olympics separate — and it has attacked anyone who has tried to link the two.
But man have linked human rights issues to the Olympics. Notable among these is Richard Gere, the American actor.
When film great Steven Spielberg went to Beijing as artistic adviser for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, Hoolywood insiders like Mr. Gere energized world public opinion to condemn Mr. Spielberg’s participation. Subsequently, Mr. Spielberg withdrew — to Beijing’s great annoyance.
Above: Steven Spielberg, seen in 2006, cut his ties with the Beijing Olympics. The director, while working for China, came to believe that China is not doing enough to help end the conflict in Darfur. (Associated Press photo).
Food
During the food and product safety crisis, Chinese pet food killed American pets; Chinese toothpaste was found to contain thinners that were poisonous; Chinese catfish were banned by Alabama and Mississippi because of high levels of antibiotics; and a company in California recalled “monkfish” from China because it was probably really puffer fish containing the toxin chemical tetrodotoxin.
Cough syrup was found to kill dozens, lead-based paint was found on toys and the blood product heperin (made in China or elsewhere by Chinese companies) was attributed with killing people.
Just this last year, for the first time in the history of China, the government published and instituted food, health and restaurant safety and hygiene standards. Olympic tourist spots in Beijing will be the first to put these into full use.
Above: Grilled rat is part of the local cuisine in China.
There are food issues involved with feeting the Olympic athletes themselves. Because of China’s record on tainted food, the U.S. Olympic Committee announced that it would bring its own food to Beijing. The Chinese went bizerk.
China suffered yet another “loss of face.” The implication from the Americans was that China could not be trusted to produce high quality, safe and tasty food for even a few weeks.
Smog an Air Pollution
China has become the world’s number one air pollution problem. Chinese people use coal for cooking and heating. Much of China’s industry works on coal — the ditiest source of energy on earth. And the coal used in China is often low quality coal which adds to the pollution. For the Olympics, China actually moved many industrial plants away from Beijing and into the country side. Thinking that automobiles were contributing the bulk of the pollution, China ordered motorists to stop driving on certain days. During the first such air pollution driving day, one million cars were not allowed on the streets of beijing. But that day, as measured by China’s version of the EPA, air pollution increased!
Beijing will have its fewest cars is about 15 years on the road during the Olympics. But Western trainers, athletes and doctors are still worried about the pollution in Beijing.
Above: Beijing’s epic air pollution…
A haze of pollution hangs over China’s National Stadium, known as the bird’s nest, the main venue for the Beijing Olympics beginning Aug. 8. (By Greg Baker - Associated Press)
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China is one of the worst offenders for failing to protect US intellectual property rights and allowing counterfeit goods to flourish.
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In an annual report on intellectual property rights protection, the US Trade Representative’s office voiced continuing concern about China’s respect of US patents and copyrights.
Music and video companies in the United States say the problem now is in the billions of dollars lost for U.S. actors, performers, producers and others each year.
The day after the blockbuster film “Titanic” was released in U.S. theaters a few years ago, a pirated DVD of the movie was available on Beijing’s streets for about $1.00.
I can recall seeing courterfeit books and tapes in China in the 1970s so this is not a new problem and it will be tough to correct.
Internet, Hacking and Cyber Terrorism
China is the world leader in hacking, cyberwar, cyber terrorism and computer intrusion and manipulation, according to Sreeram Chaulia of “Asia Sentinel.”
Beijing’s intrusions into government computers across the planet — most recently in India — are illegal and outrageous.
While world publicity has mainly focused on the intrusion of the Chinese into the email system of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates last year, the fact is that Chinese hackers have been crawling all over the computer systems of a growing number of countries. The latest example is their recent foray into the web servers of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
Our friends who live in China have given us many insights into the “Great Cyber Wall” of China. This site is not available in China. The washington Times cannot be seen in China. A “Google” search of “Fulan Gong” or “democracy” will get you nothing in China.
FOX News reported on May 1, 2008, that U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a congressional leader on human rights issues, called on President Bush to boycott China’s Olympics opening ceremonies and revealed that China has been pressuring U.S. hotels in Beijing to prevent guests’ access to the Internet during the Summer Games.
Brownback is also advising athletes to listen to their consciences before deciding whether to participate in the opening ceremonies this August.
“We have received from two different sources, that the Chinese are demanding that U.S. hotels in Beijing put filters on their Internet pipes, presumably to either monitor and or limit information coming in and out of China during the Olympics,” a source familiar with Brownback’s remarks told FOX News.
Military
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On April 30, 2008, AFP reported: “CIA chief Michael Hayden charged Wednesday that China was beefing up its military with ‘remarkable speed and scope,’ calling the buildup ‘troubling.’”
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“The Chinese, he said, had fully absorbed the lessons of both Gulf wars, developing and integrating advanced weaponry into a modern military force.”
“Hayden said while Beijing’s new capabilities could pose a risk to US forces and interests in the region, the military modernization was as much about projecting strength as anything else.”
A Chinese Su-27 Flanker fighter at Anshan Airfield, China.
China has designated this aircraft the J-11.
China’s militay activity ranges from what seems like small things like moving its influence further into the Spratley and Paracel islands to intimidating Taiwan with ballistic missiles and building a secret naval base on the southern tip of Hainan island.
China also has a vibrant industry builing submarines, tanks, surface ships and war aircraft.
But it is the intelligence community’s view that any Chinese regime, even a democratic one, will have similar national goals, as those now being exhibited by communist China, said Hayden.
Hayden, once the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces, has announced his military retirement but he will remain head of the CIA.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Michael Hayden, seen here during February 2008 testimony, that China was beefing up its military with “remarkable speed and scope,” calling the buildup “troubling.“
(AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
“Don’t misunderstand. The military buildup is troubling because it reinforces long-held concerns about Chinese intentions towards Taiwan,” Hayden said.
“But even without that issue, we assess the buildup would continue — albeit one that might look somewhat different,” he said.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, but Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory.
Google Earth captured this image of the new Chinese ballistic-missile submarine, docked at the Xiaopingdao base south of Dalian.
REUTERS/China Daily
Accidents in China’s notoriously dangerous coal mines killed nearly 3,800 people last year — a toll that is a marked improvement from previous years, but still leaves China’s mines the world’s deadliest.
A total of 3,786 were killed in mining accidents in 2007 — 20 percent lower than the 2006 toll, indicating the effectiveness of a safety campaign to shut small, illegal mining operations and reduce gas explosions, the Xinhua News Agency quoted the head of China’s government safety watchdog as saying.Coal is the lifeblood of China’s boo
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Corruption
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A few cases are illustrative of the “culture of corruption” in China.One of our contentions is this: that China has a “culture of corruption” that often causes western business people heartburn.Consider just a few cases:–In June of 2006, the Communist government in China sacked the Vice-Mayor of Beijing. A western businessman accused him of soliciting a bribe. During the investigation, officials discovered the Vice-Mayor, who was overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games, had built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.Mr. Liu Zhihua’s colorful private life emerged after he was removed from his post after a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.The Times of London reported: “Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.”The newspaper also wondered why the mayor was not investigated because China has a history of protecting the top officials when making a show trial for more junior people.–That same month, a bogus ambulance picked up an injured pedestrian in Beijing, charging him about $100 US, and then driving him not to the closest hospital but to one much further away. The man bled to death.Concerned Chinese newspapermen discovered a plot that included unlicensed ambulances intercepting emergency calls and charging exorbitant rates to collect patients.
–The SARS outbreak reaction and the thee phase response to crises is a symptom of the “culture of corruption.” The general disregard for public safety exemplified by the pet food, food and toothpaste fiascos are all symptomatic of the culture of corruption. In fact, Chinese culture has such an ingrained teaching to cheat the other guy that it will take a century or more to turn this ship of state around.
–On May 10, 2007, the maker of Budweiser beer went to court in Arkansas to claim that an Arkansas-registered company is illegally marketing beer in China, using the American brewer’s trademarks. Anheuser-Busch sued USA Bai Wei Group in Pulaski County, Arkansas, Circuit Court, seeking an injunction to revoke Bai Wei’s corporate charter and require a name change.
Bai Wei (pronounced By Way) is how the Chinese language trademark for Budweiser is pronounced in English, according to the St. Louis-based brewer’s complaint.
This incident is part of a decades long disregard for intellectual property rights in China, where western copyrights and trademarks are ignored. Some of us first saw illegally republished or “pirated” book in China in 1976.
–The Associated Press recently reported on a scandal in China’s medical system involving “doctored” and unhealthy blood. China admitted to the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeited blood protein.
The report centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”
The bottom line is this: until the culture of Chinese business improves, westerners will always be frustrated and wary of getting taken. More so in China than in almost any other nation in the world, the motto has to be “buyer beware.”. This will sometime become a stumbling block to good relations and good business.
Minor Civil Diobedience
China has a very poor and well understood human rights record in places like Tibet. But deep inside China one can find slavery, child labor, harsh living and working conditions, forced abortions and a host of other abuses.
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Human Rights Watch and other international organizations do a fine job documenting these troubling abuses but the Chinese often times just don’t listen.
These men, found working in China last year, turned out to be slaves.
According to Reuters, China’s lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation’s rights record before the Olympics.
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Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
“Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects,” the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. “China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law.”
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
Conclusion
China wanted these Olympics. They have bent over backward in many ways to insure the success of the Olympics. But they have also hammered together a veneer that won’t hide much from the Western media. The air pollution in Beijing is intolerable and, one might argue, a criminal abuse of the Chinese people. Restaurant food safety standards have just been instituted in China (for the first time) during the last year’s run up to the Olympics. Millions of homeless adults and young orphans are being scooped up in buses and removed from Beijing so the Western media won’t see them during the Olympics. And sub-standard, non-Western housing, the famous hutongs of Beijing, are being seized from the owners and plowed into oblivion – so Western TV viewers won’t see them.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge told Western countries to stop hectoring China over human rights in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, in an interview with a British newspaper published Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Rogge said that while he understood the strength of feeling in the West, expectations of how quickly China can change were overblown.
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Jacques Rogge
“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949,” the 65-year-old Belgian told the FT business daily.
“We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”
In 1949, Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal came “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest,” Mr. Rogge said.
Well, poor, poor China. My heart aches for the communist leaders of China.
Not.
Mr. Rogge is part of sending the Olympics to China. Now he has to suffer the consequences.
Chinese military patrol the streets in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008. China warned the Dalai Lama to stop “sabotaging the Olympics,” sparking an angry reaction from Tibetan leaders who said more than 200 people had died in the Chinese crackdown and unrest. (AFP)
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Remember: All is not what it seems in China…..And you will
be watched….
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.Related:
Beijing Olympics: Get Ready To Face The Façade
(This essay has many additional links at the bottom….)
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Washington too timid with China on Darfur: US senator
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China: So Big, So Powerful, So Disorganized, So Corrupt
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China: At Long Last Admits Food Safety Clean Up Will Be “Arduous,” Long Term
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Corruption
.
A few cases are illustrative of the “culture of corruption” in China.One of our contentions is this: that China has a “culture of corruption” that often causes western business people heartburn.Consider just a few cases:–In June of 2006, the Communist government in China sacked the Vice-Mayor of Beijing. A western businessman accused him of soliciting a bribe. During the investigation, officials discovered the Vice-Mayor, who was overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games, had built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.Mr. Liu Zhihua’s colorful private life emerged after he was removed from his post after a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.The Times of London reported: “Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.”The newspaper also wondered why the mayor was not investigated because China has a history of protecting the top officials when making a show trial for more junior people.–That same month, a bogus ambulance picked up an injured pedestrian in Beijing, charging him about $100 US, and then driving him not to the closest hospital but to one much further away. The man bled to death.Concerned Chinese newspapermen discovered a plot that included unlicensed ambulances intercepting emergency calls and charging exorbitant rates to collect patients.
–The SARS outbreak reaction and the thee phase response to crises is a symptom of the “culture of corruption.” The general disregard for public safety exemplified by the pet food, food and toothpaste fiascos are all symptomatic of the culture of corruption. In fact, Chinese culture has such an ingrained teaching to cheat the other guy that it will take a century or more to turn this ship of state around.
–On May 10, 2007, the maker of Budweiser beer went to court in Arkansas to claim that an Arkansas-registered company is illegally marketing beer in China, using the American brewer’s trademarks. Anheuser-Busch sued USA Bai Wei Group in Pulaski County, Arkansas, Circuit Court, seeking an injunction to revoke Bai Wei’s corporate charter and require a name change.
Bai Wei (pronounced By Way) is how the Chinese language trademark for Budweiser is pronounced in English, according to the St. Louis-based brewer’s complaint.
This incident is part of a decades long disregard for intellectual property rights in China, where western copyrights and trademarks are ignored. Some of us first saw illegally republished or “pirated” book in China in 1976.
–The Associated Press recently reported on a scandal in China’s medical system involving “doctored” and unhealthy blood. China admitted to the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeited blood protein.
The report centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”
The bottom line is this: until the culture of Chinese business improves, westerners will always be frustrated and wary of getting taken. More so in China than in almost any other nation in the world, the motto has to be “buyer beware.”. This will sometime become a stumbling block to good relations and good business.
Minor Civil Diobedience
China has a very poor and well understood human rights record in places like Tibet. But deep inside China one can find slavery, child labor, harsh living and working conditions, forced abortions and a host of other abuses.
.
Human Rights Watch and other international organizations do a fine job documenting these troubling abuses but the Chinese often times just don’t listen.
These men, found working in China last year, turned out to be slaves.
According to Reuters, China’s lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation’s rights record before the Olympics.
.
Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
“Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects,” the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. “China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law.”
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
Conclusion
China wanted these Olympics. They have bent over backward in many ways to insure the success of the Olympics. But they have also hammered together a veneer that won’t hide much from the Western media. The air pollution in Beijing is intolerable and, one might argue, a criminal abuse of the Chinese people. Restaurant food safety standards have just been instituted in China (for the first time) during the last year’s run up to the Olympics. Millions of homeless adults and young orphans are being scooped up in buses and removed from Beijing so the Western media won’t see them during the Olympics. And sub-standard, non-Western housing, the famous hutongs of Beijing, are being seized from the owners and plowed into oblivion – so Western TV viewers won’t see them.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge told Western countries to stop hectoring China over human rights in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, in an interview with a British newspaper published Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Rogge said that while he understood the strength of feeling in the West, expectations of how quickly China can change were overblown.
.
Jacques Rogge
“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949,” the 65-year-old Belgian told the FT business daily.
“We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”
In 1949, Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal came “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest,” Mr. Rogge said.
Well, poor, poor China. My heart aches for the communist leaders of China.
Not.
Mr. Rogge is part of sending the Olympics to China. Now he has to suffer the consequences.
Chinese military patrol the streets in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008. China warned the Dalai Lama to stop “sabotaging the Olympics,” sparking an angry reaction from Tibetan leaders who said more than 200 people had died in the Chinese crackdown and unrest. (AFP)
*********
Remember: All is not what it seems in China…..And you will
be watched….
with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeited blood protein.
The report centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”
The bottom line is this: until the culture of Chinese business improves, westerners will always be frustrated and wary of getting taken. More so in China than in almost any other nation in the world, the motto has to be “buyer beware.”. This will sometime become a stumbling block to good relations and good business.
Minor Civil Diobedience
China has a very poor and well understood human rights record in places like Tibet. But deep inside China one can find slavery, child labor, harsh living and working conditions, forced abortions and a host of other abuses.
.
Human Rights Watch and other international organizations do a fine job documenting these troubling abuses but the Chinese often times just don’t listen.
These men, found working in China last year, turned out to be slaves.
According to Reuters, China’s lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation’s rights record before the Olympics.
.
Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
“Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects,” the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. “China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law.”
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
Conclusion
China wanted these Olympics. They have bent over backward in many ways to insure the success of the Olympics. But they have also hammered together a veneer that won’t hide much from the Western media. The air pollution in Beijing is intolerable and, one might argue, a criminal abuse of the Chinese people. Restaurant food safety standards have just been instituted in China (for the first time) during the last year’s run up to the Olympics. Millions of homeless adults and young orphans are being scooped up in buses and removed from Beijing so the Western media won’t see them during the Olympics. And sub-standard, non-Western housing, the famous hutongs of Beijing, are being seized from the owners and plowed into oblivion – so Western TV viewers won’t see them.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge told Western countries to stop hectoring China over human rights in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, in an interview with a British newspaper published Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Rogge said that while he understood the strength of feeling in the West, expectations of how quickly China can change were overblown.
.
Jacques Rogge
“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949,” the 65-year-old Belgian told the FT business daily.
“We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”
In 1949, Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal came “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest,” Mr. Rogge said.
Well, poor, poor China. My heart aches for the communist leaders of China.
Not.
Mr. Rogge is part of sending the Olympics to China. Now he has to suffer the consequences.
Chinese military patrol the streets in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008. China warned the Dalai Lama to stop “sabotaging the Olympics,” sparking an angry reaction from Tibetan leaders who said more than 200 people had died in the Chinese crackdown and unrest. (AFP)
*********
Remember: All is not what it seems in China…..And you will
be watched….
.
.Related:
Beijing Olympics: Get Ready To Face The Façade
(This essay has many additional links at the bottom….)
.
Washington too timid with China on Darfur: US senator
.
China: So Big, So Powerful, So Disorganized, So Corrupt
.
China: At Long Last Admits Food Safety Clean Up Will Be “Arduous,” Long Term
.
.
Corruption
.
A few cases are illustrative of the “culture of corruption” in China.One of our contentions is this: that China has a “culture of corruption” that often causes western business people heartburn.Consider just a few cases:–In June of 2006, the Communist government in China sacked the Vice-Mayor of Beijing. A western businessman accused him of soliciting a bribe. During the investigation, officials discovered the Vice-Mayor, who was overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games, had built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.Mr. Liu Zhihua’s colorful private life emerged after he was removed from his post after a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.The Times of London reported: “Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.”The newspaper also wondered why the mayor was not investigated because China has a history of protecting the top officials when making a show trial for more junior people.–That same month, a bogus ambulance picked up an injured pedestrian in Beijing, charging him about $100 US, and then driving him not to the closest hospital but to one much further away. The man bled to death.Concerned Chinese newspapermen discovered a plot that included unlicensed ambulances intercepting emergency calls and charging exorbitant rates to collect patients.
–The SARS outbreak reaction and the thee phase response to crises is a symptom of the “culture of corruption.” The general disregard for public safety exemplified by the pet food, food and toothpaste fiascos are all symptomatic of the culture of corruption. In fact, Chinese culture has such an ingrained teaching to cheat the other guy that it will take a century or more to turn this ship of state around.
–On May 10, 2007, the maker of Budweiser beer went to court in Arkansas to claim that an Arkansas-registered company is illegally marketing beer in China, using the American brewer’s trademarks. Anheuser-Busch sued USA Bai Wei Group in Pulaski County, Arkansas, Circuit Court, seeking an injunction to revoke Bai Wei’s corporate charter and require a name change.
Bai Wei (pronounced By Way) is how the Chinese language trademark for Budweiser is pronounced in English, according to the St. Louis-based brewer’s complaint.
This incident is part of a decades long disregard for intellectual property rights in China, where western copyrights and trademarks are ignored. Some of us first saw illegally republished or “pirated” book in China in 1976.
–The Associated Press recently reported on a scandal in China’s medical system involving “doctored” and unhealthy blood. China admitted to the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeited blood protein.
The report centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”
The bottom line is this: until the culture of Chinese business improves, westerners will always be frustrated and wary of getting taken. More so in China than in almost any other nation in the world, the motto has to be “buyer beware.”. This will sometime become a stumbling block to good relations and good business.
Minor Civil Diobedience
China has a very poor and well understood human rights record in places like Tibet. But deep inside China one can find slavery, child labor, harsh living and working conditions, forced abortions and a host of other abuses.
.
Human Rights Watch and other international organizations do a fine job documenting these troubling abuses but the Chinese often times just don’t listen.
These men, found working in China last year, turned out to be slaves.
According to Reuters, China’s lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation’s rights record before the Olympics.
.
Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
“Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects,” the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. “China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law.”
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
Conclusion
China wanted these Olympics. They have bent over backward in many ways to insure the success of the Olympics. But they have also hammered together a veneer that won’t hide much from the Western media. The air pollution in Beijing is intolerable and, one might argue, a criminal abuse of the Chinese people. Restaurant food safety standards have just been instituted in China (for the first time) during the last year’s run up to the Olympics. Millions of homeless adults and young orphans are being scooped up in buses and removed from Beijing so the Western media won’t see them during the Olympics. And sub-standard, non-Western housing, the famous hutongs of Beijing, are being seized from the owners and plowed into oblivion – so Western TV viewers won’t see them.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge told Western countries to stop hectoring China over human rights in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, in an interview with a British newspaper published Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Rogge said that while he understood the strength of feeling in the West, expectations of how quickly China can change were overblown.
.
Jacques Rogge
“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949,” the 65-year-old Belgian told the FT business daily.
“We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”
In 1949, Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal came “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest,” Mr. Rogge said.
Well, poor, poor China. My heart aches for the communist leaders of China.
Not.
Mr. Rogge is part of sending the Olympics to China. Now he has to suffer the consequences.
Chinese military patrol the streets in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008. China warned the Dalai Lama to stop “sabotaging the Olympics,” sparking an angry reaction from Tibetan leaders who said more than 200 people had died in the Chinese crackdown and unrest. (AFP)
*********
Remember: All is not what it seems in China…..And you will
be watched….
.
.Related:
Beijing Olympics: Get Ready To Face The Façade
(This essay has many additional links at the bottom….)
.
Washington too timid with China on Darfur: US senator
.
China: So Big, So Powerful, So Disorganized, So Corrupt
.
China: At Long Last Admits Food Safety Clean Up Will Be “Arduous,” Long Term
.
.
Corruption
.
A few cases are illustrative of the “culture of corruption” in China.One of our contentions is this: that China has a “culture of corruption” that often causes western business people heartburn.Consider just a few cases:–In June of 2006, the Communist government in China sacked the Vice-Mayor of Beijing. A western businessman accused him of soliciting a bribe. During the investigation, officials discovered the Vice-Mayor, who was overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games, had built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.Mr. Liu Zhihua’s colorful private life emerged after he was removed from his post after a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.The Times of London reported: “Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.”The newspaper also wondered why the mayor was not investigated because China has a history of protecting the top officials when making a show trial for more junior people.–That same month, a bogus ambulance picked up an injured pedestrian in Beijing, charging him about $100 US, and then driving him not to the closest hospital but to one much further away. The man bled to death.Concerned Chinese newspapermen discovered a plot that included unlicensed ambulances intercepting emergency calls and charging exorbitant rates to collect patients.
–The SARS outbreak reaction and the thee phase response to crises is a symptom of the “culture of corruption.” The general disregard for public safety exemplified by the pet food, food and toothpaste fiascos are all symptomatic of the culture of corruption. In fact, Chinese culture has such an ingrained teaching to cheat the other guy that it will take a century or more to turn this ship of state around.
–On May 10, 2007, the maker of Budweiser beer went to court in Arkansas to claim that an Arkansas-registered company is illegally marketing beer in China, using the American brewer’s trademarks. Anheuser-Busch sued USA Bai Wei Group in Pulaski County, Arkansas, Circuit Court, seeking an injunction to revoke Bai Wei’s corporate charter and require a name change.
Bai Wei (pronounced By Way) is how the Chinese language trademark for Budweiser is pronounced in English, according to the St. Louis-based brewer’s complaint.
This incident is part of a decades long disregard for intellectual property rights in China, where western copyrights and trademarks are ignored. Some of us first saw illegally republished or “pirated” book in China in 1976.
–The Associated Press recently reported on a scandal in China’s medical system involving “doctored” and unhealthy blood. China admitted to the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeited blood protein.
The report centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”
The bottom line is this: until the culture of Chinese business improves, westerners will always be frustrated and wary of getting taken. More so in China than in almost any other nation in the world, the motto has to be “buyer beware.”. This will sometime become a stumbling block to good relations and good business.
Minor Civil Diobedience
China has a very poor and well understood human rights record in places like Tibet. But deep inside China one can find slavery, child labor, harsh living and working conditions, forced abortions and a host of other abuses.
.
Human Rights Watch and other international organizations do a fine job documenting these troubling abuses but the Chinese often times just don’t listen.
These men, found working in China last year, turned out to be slaves.
According to Reuters, China’s lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation’s rights record before the Olympics.
.
Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
“Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects,” the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. “China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law.”
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
Conclusion
China wanted these Olympics. They have bent over backward in many ways to insure the success of the Olympics. But they have also hammered together a veneer that won’t hide much from the Western media. The air pollution in Beijing is intolerable and, one might argue, a criminal abuse of the Chinese people. Restaurant food safety standards have just been instituted in China (for the first time) during the last year’s run up to the Olympics. Millions of homeless adults and young orphans are being scooped up in buses and removed from Beijing so the Western media won’t see them during the Olympics. And sub-standard, non-Western housing, the famous hutongs of Beijing, are being seized from the owners and plowed into oblivion – so Western TV viewers won’t see them.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge told Western countries to stop hectoring China over human rights in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, in an interview with a British newspaper published Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Rogge said that while he understood the strength of feeling in the West, expectations of how quickly China can change were overblown.
.
Jacques Rogge
“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949,” the 65-year-old Belgian told the FT business daily.
“We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”
In 1949, Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal came “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest,” Mr. Rogge said.
Well, poor, poor China. My heart aches for the communist leaders of China.
Not.
Mr. Rogge is part of sending the Olympics to China. Now he has to suffer the consequences.
Chinese military patrol the streets in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008. China warned the Dalai Lama to stop “sabotaging the Olympics,” sparking an angry reaction from Tibetan leaders who said more than 200 people had died in the Chinese crackdown and unrest. (AFP)
*********
Remember: All is not what it seems in China…..And you will
be watched….
.
.Related:
Beijing Olympics: Get Ready To Face The Façade
(This essay has many additional links at the bottom….)
.
Washington too timid with China on Darfur: US senator
.
China: So Big, So Powerful, So Disorganized, So Corrupt
.
China: At Long Last Admits Food Safety Clean Up Will Be “Arduous,” Long Term
.
.
Corruption
.
A few cases are illustrative of the “culture of corruption” in China.One of our contentions is this: that China has a “culture of corruption” that often causes western business people heartburn.Consider just a few cases:–In June of 2006, the Communist government in China sacked the Vice-Mayor of Beijing. A western businessman accused him of soliciting a bribe. During the investigation, officials discovered the Vice-Mayor, who was overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games, had built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.Mr. Liu Zhihua’s colorful private life emerged after he was removed from his post after a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.The Times of London reported: “Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.”The newspaper also wondered why the mayor was not investigated because China has a history of protecting the top officials when making a show trial for more junior people.–That same month, a bogus ambulance picked up an injured pedestrian in Beijing, charging him about $100 US, and then driving him not to the closest hospital but to one much further away. The man bled to death.Concerned Chinese newspapermen discovered a plot that included unlicensed ambulances intercepting emergency calls and charging exorbitant rates to collect patients.
–The SARS outbreak reaction and the thee phase response to crises is a symptom of the “culture of corruption.” The general disregard for public safety exemplified by the pet food, food and toothpaste fiascos are all symptomatic of the culture of corruption. In fact, Chinese culture has such an ingrained teaching to cheat the other guy that it will take a century or more to turn this ship of state around.
–On May 10, 2007, the maker of Budweiser beer went to court in Arkansas to claim that an Arkansas-registered company is illegally marketing beer in China, using the American brewer’s trademarks. Anheuser-Busch sued USA