Nshima & Curry

Column: Beijing Olympics trigger protests, boycotts and name-calling

The 2008 Beijing Olympics have put the spotlight on China, bringing attention to the conflict in Tibet and all the human rights abuses. Protesters disrupted Olympic torch relays in San Francisco and other western cities, many of them holding signs with stern messages for China such as “Free Tibet!” “Stop human rights abuses!” and “Give us cheaper TVs now!”

Indian soccer star Bhaichung Bhutia declined to run with the torch as "my way of standing by the people of Tibet," while actor Aamir Khan vowed to run with the torch "not in support of China" but "with a prayer in my heart for the people of Tibet."

Inspired by Khan, long jumper Anju Bobby George announced that she will protest China's human rights abuses by participating in the Beijing Olympics. "I am participating in the Olympics not in support of China," she said, "but with a prayer in my heart for the people of Tibet."

She pledged to lie on the ground before every jump, extending her legs outward to form a ‘T.’ “It may look like I’m stretching,” she said. “But I’m showing my support for Tibet.”

Just a day before the torch relay in India, cricket star Sachin Tendulkar pulled out of the event, saying that he had a groin injury. It's believed that he suffered the injury while running away from Tibetan activists.

Indian officials were so worried about protests that they drastically shortened the route of the torch relay, asking Khan to run with it from his bedroom to living room. He handed the torch to tennis star Leander Paes, who took it all the way to the kitchen. Other celebrities then did mini-runs from one appliance to another.

The video was doctored for Chinese television to show Khan and Paes running in front of the Taj Mahal, cheered on by thousands of people, including Mahatma Gandhi.

Column: Lock up the dissidents, the Olympics are coming

As the 2008 Summer Olympics approach, many people are scratching their heads and asking, "How in heaven's name was Beijing selected as the host city?" The answer is simple: Beijing was chosen because Baghdad was unavailable. Actually, the International Olympic Committee wanted to encourage China to emulate previous hosts and pursue democratic principles. China, in turn, pledged to be good hosts, promising to make athletes and other guests comfortable and, for at least three weeks, suspend all human rights abuses.

It's a good arrangement, really, opening the door for future Olympics to be held in places such as Tehran, Iran, and Pyongyang, North Korea. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to the 2020 Guantánamo Bay Olympics. By then, waterboarding will be an official event.

The Beijing Olympics are destined to be the most successful games in Olympic history. And if you don't believe me, just ask any Chinese journalist who isn't in prison. "Best Olympics ever," they will say. "That's what we've been told."

If you're a foreign journalist who disagrees, that's okay. You have the freedom to say what you want, while people in China have the freedom to believe whatever their government lets them.

The new Angola: made by China

Lucy Ash of the BBC World Service has written an interesting feature on the Chinese workers who are helping to rebuild Angola, a country still recovering from civil war.

Three hours south of the capital, in the coastal town of Sumbe, I find a team of 95 Chinese men finishing a technical college and about to start work on a hospital. The site is set back from the road and surrounded by a high fence.

Inside is Wang Weiheng, a 28 year old doctor from the Chinese city of Chonqing, whose job is to look after the construction workers.

"I try my best," she says, showing us the spartan dormitories where 10 men sleep in bunkbeds draped with mosquito nets. "But in the rainy season we had several cases of malaria."

In the kitchen are lots of paper signs in Mandarin taped to the wall. Weiheng says they tell the cooks which foods some people will not eat.

"I don't like pig's ear or leg of pork; others don't eat beef," says Dr Wang.

"Our food is very important to us - it stops us from feeling too homesick." [Link]

Chinese food is important to me too --  it stops me from feeling too sick of home food.

Dr Wang says she saw the job advertised on the internet. Her husband, whom she met a medical school, also applied for a posting in Angola.

He is the doctor at another building site in the town of Uaco Cungo, a day's drive away. Neither had been abroad before.

"In my mind, Africa was a country filled with animals like zebras and lions and lots of grass," laughs Dr Wang as she looks across the dusty, flat landscape beyond the camp. "So when I got here it was a big surprise." [Link]

What a brave woman! She thought Africa was full of animals like zebras and lions -- and she still went.

My translator, Lucy Corkin, an academic from South Africa, is researching the impact of Chinese credit across the continent.

She explains that a few years ago an overcrowded China decided to encourage its companies to invest abroad by creating the "Going Out" policy.

The idea was to expand excess capacity overseas and to cut unemployment at home.

"China has an unemployment rate of about 9% - not much by a developing country's standards, but nine percent of 1.3 billion is definitely a lot of people." [Link]

Government official: "Dr. Wang, instead of being unemployed in China, we're sending you to Africa to work."

Wang: "Oh no! Won't I be attacked by wild animals?"

Official: "No, Dr. Wang, the crew we are sending you with is very well-behaved."