Been a busy week after a long weekend. Monday was a holiday here. Buddha's Birthday. On the way home from a family outing I got roped in by the usual suspects.

RTHK^[?] interviews Leung Yiu-chung
click on the image for a larger view

The above photo was taken around 2pm Monday. RTHK had come out to interview locals and Leung Yiu-chung (LegCo^[?], NT West) about the Ferry Fare tender and how price increases would affect people here. The actual announcements are supposed to be made this Friday afternoon in LegCo, which I'm unfortunately going to have to miss.

Didn't feel a thing sitting around waiting for things to happen here. Others though were not so lucky as the earth shook violently in Sichuan about a half hour after this photo was taken.

This post at OpenDemocracy on China and the PR around the Olympics seems to be making the rounds in the Greater English-language China blogosphere. There are certain things that wholly misses or conveniently glosses over.

The government can also rightly point to the fact that the whole torch-ceremony fiasco was not its idea, but a daft leftover that dated only from the previous Olympics, in 2004. And it can use its experience of the Olympics to demonstrate to Chinese people a conclusion many of them have already reached: namely, that when China eagerly embraces a western idea or product - and then actually lands it - there always seems to be a sting in the tail

Sadly, no. The Olympic Torch relay was first established in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics under Adolf Hitler. That's history, so if you want to invoke Godwin's Law on history, be my guest to put your head in the sand. The first torch relay was international. All subsequent torch relays up to Athens 2004 involved the lighting of the flame in Athens and then being flown to the host country where it was run around with most people ignoring the whole snooze. For Athens 2004, the flight from Athens to Athens would have been a little uneventful and given the anniversary nature of the 2004 Olympics, the torch relay was made international again. The cities chosen for the torch relay were all previous Olympic host cities. i.e. the Olympic torch relay was specifically related to the PR concerning the Olympics themselves.

2008's Beijing torch relay route bears no resemblance to the 2004 torch relay route. It bears no resemblance to any torch relay route since the original route, which was designed as a PR exercise to heap praise and glory upon the Third Reich.

If the Beijing Olympic Committee had chosen to fall back to the torch relay routes used for Atlanta and Los Angeles and Moscow and Melbourne and Seoul's coming out party and just flown from Athens to Beijing and paraded around the PRC, there probably wouldn't have been as much trouble. But the CCP^[?] can't resist pushing for the grand spectacular spectacular in the name of glorifying the Party and the one-party state.

When Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympics in 2001, many on all sides may well have sincerely believed that in seven years' time China would have made great progress both in human rights and in political reform. Their hopes proved unfounded, but their optimism should be no more dismissed than others' bleak (or in this case realistic) pessimism deserves to be applauded.

When Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympics they made all sorts of commitments to the IOC. Some of them dealt with freedom of the press and human rights. Was this a matter of sincerely believing that the PRC would have made great progress in human rights or did we just live in a fantasy land where governments are forced to live up to their promises? Obviously at this point, no one expects the IOC to hand back all of that money to Lenovo and Samsung and Coca-Cola and the other sponsors, so the Beijing Games go on, and the PR effort to whitewash the history of making inconvenient commitments that were never meant to be fulfilled and whitewashing the history of the torch relay routes in order to deflect criticism.

As for the Chinese citizens sitting back and looking at the Games as a commercialised corporate extravaganza, this author doesn't follow sports on the mainland much. Perhaps it'd just be best to conveniently forget now the Chinese fans' behaviour at various international football tourneys they've hosted over the last four years.

From the Hindustan Times comes a wire report with the statement by the Tibetan envoy: Talks with Beijing were frank

frank - open, sincere, or undisguised in manner or appearance

Personally I'm not seeing the statements made by the PRC's negotiators as open or sincere or undisguised. I have a hard time believing that the PRC's negotiators actually believe all of their statements on the Dalai clique being responsible for problems in Tibet. It is the CCP^[?] Party Line, but it's one of those slogans that many know how to mouth but not necessarily believe in their hearts. If the Dalai clique had been responsible, the CCP would have wheeled out the evidence immediately, but not a peep of proof to back up the steady stream of groundless invective, going all of the way up to Hu Jintao at the press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister in Tokyo.

"There were strong and divergent views on the nature and causes of the tragic events in Tibet which we expressed frankly," Gyari said.

"We rejected categorically the accusation that the Dalai Lama was instigating unrest in Tibet. Instead we made it clear that the events in Tibet were due to the wrong policies of China," he said.

The most apt comparison I can make with the PRC's stance that negotiations hinge on the Dalai Lama admitting that he was behind the violence in March in Tibet is winding back to 2002/2003 and listening to GDumbya claim that negotiations with Saddam Hussein hinged on Saddam admitting to his massive stock of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I don't expect memos to be leaked or declassified by the CCP to prove that the CCP knows it is full of crap in the way that memos have been leaked and declassified to prove that GDumbya and lapdog Tony Blair were full of crap concerning the existence of Saddam's non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But the principle is the same, create a hinge for negotiations which you know cannot possibly be met in order to ensure that the negotiations themselves never amount to anything but a fig leaf to satisfy the most willful of idiots creating international opinion.

ArsTechnica, one of the major tech blogs, covers the news that China refuses to guarantee open Internet during Olympics.

They said that while the government would be able to "guarantee as much [access] as possible," there's no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.

"China has always been very cautious when it comes to the Internet," Technology Minister Wan Gang said, according to Reuters. "I've not got any clear information about which sites will be shut or screened. But to protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy web sites."

Wan's statement comes just over a month after the International Olympic Committee reminded China of its obligations as an Olympic host city to allow the press to report as freely as they have in the past—which usually includes full, unfettered access to the Internet.

And usually includes full, unfettered access to the residents of the country. Though China hasn't lived up to that commitment either. Or the one made on better human rights, since they've jailed folks for activities which should be legal by the PRC Constitution that might reflect badly upon the image of the Party and the Party's Olympic party.

But cue up the Panda player, as I'm sure there will be plenty of apologists crawling out of the woodwork saying that the PRC's failure to live up to their public international commitments is not a problem, since China is evolving... getting better... and that we all should just have patience with the folks habitually failing to live up to their own promises.

Just a few weeks ago, the State Intellectual Property Office said that it was cracking down on intellectual property infringement in anticipation of the Games. Is China now trying to give itself some wiggle room? Maybe, but it's not reasonable to expect that authorities will be able to nab every single violator. But given China's long and checkered history with IP enforcement, the IOC will likely be satisfied with visible, high-profile, and frequent crackdowns.

As Captain Renault would put it, "go round up the usual suspects". There is a charade on all sides that has to be maintained.

No one could have possibly dreamed up a story line about attacking a lady in a wheelchair to tug at the audience's heart strings. That would be unpossible, right?

Ah, but it's all about the sports. Well, not really sports, but more like "sports entertainment". From 13 March, 2000, it's the Dudley Boyz and Mae Young. Get the table, D'Von.

So President Hu Jintao faces the Japanese media questions on China' minority policies.

The regional autonomy for ethnic minorities is a basic political system of China, and the Chinese government will continue to abide by this system, said Chinese President Hu Jintao.

...

Hu also outlined the basic content of China's ethnic minorities policy, saying all the ethnic groups in China were equal, and the state ensured the legitimate rights and interests of all the ethnic minorities, maintained and developed a socialist ethnic relationship featured equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony.

What Hu means is that the folks in Zhongnanhai send one of their own out to the restive conquered minority regions to enforce "autonomy" on the locals. "Autonomy" in this case means "follow the policy laid out by the heads of the CCP^[?] exactly and we may not torture you".

China Digital Times has been doing great work translating Woeser's reports on the Tibet situation. The following are from the 5th set of translations. Go over to CDT and read the whole thing and the previous posts as well. (after you finish here, right?)

Recently some people who were arrested during the March 14 Incident without any reasons were released. It is learned that they were arrested one after another after March 14. While some of them were arrested on their way home from their offices, others were arrested when they were asleep late at night. Many people were locked up in the warehouse of the railway station. Those who were tortured include: Some were forced to shoulder the instruments of torture when they were tortured, thus, those who shouldered the iron club had broken ribs; those who carried mechanical springs had their flesh cut off; those who carried electric wire lost consciousness as they were shocked, etc. Some of them were not given water to drink, so they had to drink each other’s urine, but in the end they did not even have urine to drink. Every day they were thrown a few steamed bread, and all the people would fight for them. Every four or five days they would be transferred to different places. Since they were transferred late at night, they did not where they had been.

The reports listed by Woeser conform closely to the stories that were reported 20 years ago under Hu Jintao's administration of Tibet. As for the CCP's Potemkin village presentation of a harmonious society?

In Lhasa the authorities have created the appearance of harmony. The soldiers who were on duty all took off their uniforms and dressed up as tourists to walk around everywhere. Most soldiers on guard duty changed into the police uniforms, and the same soldier would change into uniforms for ground force, armed police and policemen. The authorities also created the false appearance of the freedom for religious belief. While some work units notified their employees their place of work is to circumambulate the Potala Palace, the neighborhood committees also organized and encouraged people to go on circumambulation tour and to pay homage in Sera Monastery which has been ordered to open to the public by the authorities themselves. They rewarded these people for doing so with bonuses.

Unpossible. We've been told constantly by the highly self-proclaimed A-list English-language China bloggers for the last two months that the CCP was too inept to stage the equivalent of a professional wrestling match in Paris or hire analogues of NHL goon instigators to stir up a little violence in Lhasa, so they couldn't possibly co-ordinate something big like the Olympics or this political charade.

It is learned that recently there will be another journalist group, including foreign journalists, to visit Lhasa. In order to show that people enjoy the right to hold demonstrations freely, some work units will organize their employees to hold demonstrations, and the content for holding the demonstrations is about some trivial matters.

Distractions of complaints over trivial matters to push people away from the serious matters at hand? Unpossible. Hey look over there, a must-read by Danwei of ESWN's translation of complaints that CCTV didn't show Super Girls or Happy Boys during some pre-Olympics music spectacular spectacular. CCTV couldn't possibly have done this as ESWN has told us many times, the CCP is too inept to pull off something like this.

For those China hands who are only following the negotiations between the CCP^[?] and the Dalai Lama's envoys via the Xinhua releases, it must be nice to be so self-limiting. Meanwhile the Times of India has an extremely interesting story up on the abrupt but massive fail in Shenzhen. Sounds as if the propaganda barrage over the weekend from the CCP against the Dalai Lama was the unmoveable negotiating position of the CCP. In other words, the talks were designed to placate the Western critics rather than be actual diplomacy.

It said during the meeting officials Zhu Weiqun and Sitar told the Dalai Lama's envoys that the riots in Lhasa on March 12 had given rise to "new obstacles" for resuming contacts and consultations with the "Dalai side".

However, the government, they said, still arranged the meeting with "great patience and sincerity".

Zhu and Sitar had expressed the hope that to create conditions for the next round of contact and consultation, the Dalai side would take "credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games", the agency said quoting sources.

Earlier the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharmshala had said talks between the Dalai Lama's envoys Lody Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen and Chinese officials would continue for next two-three days but the parleys failed to stretch beyound a few hours at the tight guarded state guest house.

Ha ha, charade you are.

Why doesn't the WHO's comments on EV71 and the Olympics sound reassuring?

A highly infectious virus that has killed 24 children in China is unlikely to be a threat to the Beijing Olympics, although it is too early to tell whether it has peaked, the World Health Organization said Sunday.

Who is the Director General of WHO? Dr. Margaret Chan. As HK SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen so eloquently put it, she's "our girl".

Suspicion continues to surround the Chinese government's handling of disease outbreaks following allegations of a cover-up during the 2003 emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which originated in southern China and eventually killed nearly 800 people worldwide.

As the Director of Hong Kong's Department of Health during the SARS epidemic, Margaret Chan became infamous here and the target of official criticism from the Legislative Council. It is not a coincidence that she left town a few months after the end of SARS, as her public reputation here and trustworthiness were shattered beyond repair. Thankfully at the WHO, trustworthiness plays second fiddle to international politics.

I haven't noticed any news agency pick up this piece from this morning's SCMP^[?] (subscription required and I don't have one, so I'm just going off the copy browsed at a Pret). The Hong Kong Journalists Association was scheduled to hold a press discussion on freedom of speech and the press in Hong Kong today or tomorrow and Zhao Yan was supposed to be there to give a talk. Zhao Yan, if you remember, was the NY Times researcher in Beijing who helped the Times spill the beans on Jiang Zemin stepping down from his post as the head of the Central Military Commission a week in advance. Went to jail for three years on a trumped up fraud charge. Did his time and was free to come to Hong Kong to speak.

It's just that sometime between his arrival here in Hong Kong and his scheduled speaking slot, he disappeared. There are rumours that he went back to Beijing, but none of those concerned about him have been able to contact him since he went missing.

Thank Goodness the Hong Kong Police didn't follow up on that case of the mainland Security Bureau working in Hong Kong illegally a couple of years ago.

The story also states that another exiled mainland journalist that was supposed to be presenting at the talk on Freedom of Speech and the Press was deported. The Hong Kong SAR government responded that it was important to keep potential threats out of the SAR.

Glad to know that Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's boys are finally admitting that they consider the non-patriotic press to be a threat to state stability and security.

The HKJA doesn't have a statement posted on this yet, but the do have a statement up on journalist Zhang Yu, the coordinator of the Writers in Prison Committee of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, and artist Jens Galschiot.

UPDATE 1:35am
Some more here on the missing and deported journalists.

UPDATE Mon Cinco de Mayo 1:45pm
Let me update this with this article from Radio Free Asia on Zhao Yan resurfacing in Beijing.

He traveled to the United States last month and was scheduled to speak at a May 1-3 conference co-hosted by the Hong Kong Journalists' Association, International PEN, and other media groups. Hong Kong media described him last week as “missing,” and friends feared he had been abducted or detained.

“During my travels, I lost my cell phone, my clothes, and a notebook containing phone numbers. So I was unable to contact the conference organizers. I have a poor memory. I couldn’t remember the telephone numbers. I am sorry,” he said.

This ought to put that Olympic torch design in to perspective. Courtesy of Amnesty International UK

UPDATE: 11:50 am
A bump to put it up top for the day and a YouTube option as well (once YouTube finishes processing the video), since blip.tv seems to have bandwidth issues.

Over the month, I've read a long string of apologists for CCP^[?] rule in Tibet explaining all of the benefits that have resulted. The roads and "economic development" and "social reform" for example. Every time I read one of these, I kept thinking to myself that this all sounds very familiar. It's the sort of history that the British imperialist historians/apologists used to sweep away criticisms of the empire and colonialism in places like Hong Kong or India.

A Concise History of Modern India (second edition), Barbara D. and Thomas R. Metcalf, Cambridge University Press, ©2001&2006,ISBN-13 978-0-521-68225-1

p.93
Most historians now agree that the rigidities introduced by colonial policy decisively shaped, even distorted, modernity in India. This approach offers a corrective to what was too easily described during the colonial era as the 'blessings of British rule', namely the pacification and unification of the country, legal codification, the use of the English language, public works, and a range of social reforms. Critics of European modernity, among them Britons as well as Indians, even at the time saw the dark side of these changes, among them racism, militarism, and the economic exploitation that was part of the colonial relationship. What coloured those 'blessings' above all was a mentality that discounted Indian abilities and aspiration to self-rule, an attitude the historian Francis Hutchins termed the British 'illusion of permanence'.

Tribalist racism, militarism, and the economic exploitation of Tibet by the CCP? Unpossible.

To follow on from my posting from a few days ago on Functional Constituencies and British colonial political development, a second citation covering from 20 to 50 years later. {Bracketed comment is my own and not the original.}

A Concise History of Modern India (second edition), Barbara D. and Thomas R. Metcalf, Cambridge University Press, ©2001&2006,ISBN-13 978-0-521-68225-1

p.115
The title {making Victoria Empress as well as Queen} was announced at an 'Imperial Assemblage' orchestrated by the viceroy Lord Lytton (1876-80). It was held in the old Mughal capital of Delhi to underline the imperial motif, and was intended above all to recognize and solidify bonds with princes, rural magnates, and urban notables. They were now regarded, in a phrase that became common at this time, as the 'natural leaders' of their people, able to command the loyalty of those below them, and themselves loyal to the British. For the assemblage, Lytton fabricated a medieval vision of the viceroy as monarch surrounded by his loyal vassals, even presenting the princes with banners emblazoned with European-style coats of arms tailored to each recipient. Later assemblies (in 1903 and 1911) were called durbars in imitation of Mughal usage, and were organized in what was thought to be a more 'Indian' mode that emphasized Indian difference from Europe, not similarity. As Lytton proclaimed in 1877, such gatherings were meant to make visible an empire 'multitudinous in its traditions, as well as in its inhabitants, almost infinite in the variety of races which populate it, and of the creeds which have shaped their character'. At such events the language of 'feudalism' almost wholly pushed aside that of 'liberalism'.

In addition to such assemblies, the British sought to bind India's 'natural' leaders to themselves through the granting of awards, titles, and various privileges, as well as through inclusion in this municipal governments that became increasingly important in the period.

The "natural" leaders of these groups obviously tie very closely to the model of the Functional Constituencies in Hong Kong. At the same time they model very closely to the 'consultative' model of "socialist democracy" espoused by the CCP^[?]. The model of durbars where the provincial/tribal leaders of society came to the capital to meet the central ruling Executive Committee in full provincial/tribal regalia for me brings up visions of the opening of every NPC^[?] and CPPCC meeting.

The RNC's whiny ass titty baby act has made it to my RTHK^[?] news feed.

They say the ad, unveiled this week by the Democratic National Committee, falsely and maliciously accuses Senator McCain of stating that prolonging the Iraq war for 100 years would be 'fine' with him. The Republicans say Senator McCain made no such statement.

Watch the ad and listen to McCain in McCain's own words. After 8 years of GDumbya, Jack Abramoff, a Presidential pardon of Scooter Libby, the resignation of almost all of the highest officials at the Republican Department of Justice (and plenty of other officials), do you trust the RNC or your own lyin' eyes?

And for all of the US' or the UK's flaws, you CANNOT see an ad like this in Hong Kong or China as they lack the basic freedom of the public airwaves to allow such a public debate of critical public policy.

UPDATE 10:45am
Go check out the video of McCain on ABC's Good Morning America that Attaturk found from the morning after McCain won the New Hampshire primary. Forget a hundred, McCain suggests a thousand or a million years. REALLY. A million years in Iraq! McCain thinks Americans will be okay with permanent bases in Iraq, if the casualties are eliminated.

If there is a silver lining to the 8 years of GDumbya's Presidency and the neo-cons unbridled hubris, it's that Americans are finally re-evaluating the premise and costs of permanent American bases abroad as a positive and I'm happy to see the 1st Infantry Division HQ being rotated back to Fort Riley from Germany.

Australia banned from taking food to Beijing Olympics

In another example of the iron-clad control Beijing is trying to exert on foreigners, Games organisers have told Australia it must source all food from within China.

It is understood the Chinese have introduced the ban to maximise revenue for local food producers.

The policy is an abrupt departure from previous Olympics, when Australian athletes have been allowed to bring in foods to meet their strict dietary needs.

...

But the International Olympics Committee previously stated competitors are banned from bringing their own food to the athletes' village to protect the rights of sponsors like McDonalds and to police the use of illegal substances.

Is this designed to provide the best sport or best profits? Yeah, it's crass commercialism just designed to protect IOC officials' gravy train provided by their high paying sponsors and potentially provide an advantage for athletes from the host country. Go China! Win at all costs!

A LOT of cyber-ink has been spilled on the Chinese protests against Carrefour. The latest round of nonsense that's being tossed around courtesy of ESWN and repeated by Imagethief is that Carrefour is partially responsible for the protests due to a poor PR crisis response. This is similar to saying that a rape victim is responsible for being attacked, which is quite popular among those regularly making excuses for rapists and other thugs and goons.

Strangely the "A-list China bloggers" haven't spent a single cyber-column inch on the larger diplomatic dance going on between France and the PRC. Even Richard Spencer at the Telegraph misses the big picture, while recognising the absurdity of protesting Carrefour.

From Friday the 25th in China Daily comes comments from Hu Jintao.

The disruptions to the Olympic torch relay in Paris have hurt the feelings of Chinese people, President Hu Jintao said Thursday while urging France to squarely face up to problems that have cropped up recently in bilateral relations.

The president asked the French government to work with China to handle disagreements.

This followed the statements from French President Sarkozy that he was concerned about human rights in China and was thinking of boycotting the Beijing Olympics.

As anyone who has spent much time reading the history of the Sino-British negotiations on the handover of Hong Kong, China's preferred diplomatic wedge is the foreign business community. Read through Jonathan Dimbleby's The Last Governor and you'll many many instances where the PRC negotiators leaned on the British business community to lean on Chris Patten to kowtow to PRC diplomatic demands. Carrefour, who needed China more than China needed them as opposed to French hi-tech or automotive companies, would be the fulcrum that the CCP^[?] used to move Sarkozy and the French government. There was nothing Carrefour could do to stop the protests except lean on Sarkozy to kowtow to the CCP.

From Monday the 28th China Daily on French-China ties.

Chinese foreign ministry revealed the five-point consensus reached by Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Jean-David Levitte, a diplomatic adviser of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, during their Saturday talks.

China and France should view and handle two-way relations from a strategic level and long-term perspective. The two countries should make efforts to remove obstacles and strengthen mutual trust so as to promote healthy and smooth development of the Sino-French relations, according to the consensus.

The French side firmly adheres to the one-China policy, reiterates that Tibet and Taiwan are inalienable parts of the Chinese territory, holds that the issues of Taiwan and Tibet belong to China's internal affairs, and France supports the national reunification of China, the consensus says.

The two sides also touched upon the Olympic issue, saying that Olympic Games serve as a grand activity of sports and friendship of all people in the world. The French side supports and wishes a great success to the Beijing Olympic Games.

When it comes to getting between a company and the promise of mythic, yet somehow unrealisable profits, nothing will stand in the way in the way of that One Dream.