By Kevin Deluca

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10359098

With the Olympics over, I hope the Western sport of bashing China over Tibet might stop.

Working in Beijing during the Tibet riots and the preparations for the Olympics gave me a unique perspective. Growing up with Western media and Hollywood, I am used to our embrace of the Dalai Lama. Being in China, I saw the Chinese point of view.

Seeing both sides suggests the need to abandon simplistic political stances in favor of some self-reflection and historical context.

Although we should criticize China’s censored media, the Tibet riots revealed some troubling blindness among our own media. While the causes of Tibetan unrest are complex, it is clear that the March riots were started by Tibetan protesters and that they were quite violent. Indeed, they were violent enough to lead the Dalai Lama to threaten resignation if his followers did not stop the violence.

Since “violent Tibetan” does not fit our stereotype, our media fixed the news. While Chinese media showed extensive footage of violence and interviews with Chinese and Tibetan victims, Western media manipulated images and even showed footage from other countries (Nepal and India) in order to paint a picture of ruthless oppression by China’s government.

Chinese media exposed the Western media manipulations, forcing the BBC, N-TV and RTL-TV to apologize. Not surprisingly, the American media has yet to acknowledge
its bending of the truth. The point is that while the Chinese know their media is censored and do not trust it, we believe our news is objective and end up being righteous while misinformed.

If we had seen the violence of the Tibet riots, our condemnations may be more nuanced. Quite simply, no government, democratic or not, allows such violence within its own borders. Providing peace and stability, even by force if necessary, is what governments do.

Large and powerful countries tend to have regions that were not always part of the country. In America, we proudly call it Manifest Destiny and never trouble ourselves with how we got much of California and Texas from Mexico, never mind the rest of the country and our sordid history with Native Americans.

On the Chinese flag there are five stars commonly interpreted as representing the five major ethnic groups in China. One of those stars represents Tibetans. China’s claim to Tibet spans centuries and it is a claim that the United States and the rest of the world recognizes.

To Chinese people, removing one of those stars is akin to removing one of our states, such as Hawaii. Our history with the native people of Hawaii has been relatively brief and quite brutal and there exists a tenacious independence movement. Still, there is no talk in the mainstream media and among the Hollywood celebrity activist circuit of Hawaiian independence, not to mention Puerto Rican independence or the American Indian movement.

Government repression of these movements also escapes media scrutiny. Before we lecture China, we may want to tend to our own backyard.

Amid cries of “free Tibet” and calls for religious freedom, the question is what does freedom have to do with Tibet? Under the Dalai Lama, was there religious freedom? Was there any freedom? Actually, no.

We would recognize the Dalai Lama’s Tibet as a medieval religious theocracy with a small elite class served by a large and oppressed serf population. The Dalai Lama ruled a region with no religious freedom, no political freedom, indeed, no human rights of any kind. The rulers were ruthless. Torture and mutilation were widespread. Poverty and starvation were rampant. It was Shangri-La only in the West’s imagination.

Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and other Hollywood devotees may be surprised at their idol’s current positions. The Dalai Lama condemns abortion and homosexuality while accepting prostitution. For decades the Dalai Lama secured millions of dollars from the CIA and runs his government in exile like a monarch.

Despite its shortcomings, Chinese rule has provided the Tibetan region with infrastructure and public schooling and provides Tibetans with widespread opportunities and a degree of personal freedom unheard of under the feudal theocracy of the dalai lamas.

China is far from perfect and deserves honest scrutiny and criticism. To expect China not to act like a large and powerful country, however, and to throw stones from our glass house, proves nothing but our own ignorance.

KEVIN DELUCA is an associate professor of communications at the University of Utah and author of “Image Politics.”

by Virginia Hoge
August 27, 2008

I have been noticing the alarming amount of China-bashing going on in our media leading up to, during, and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but where are they getting their “information” from? This is the troubling question, one that has not been addressed by anyone in the country (that I know of), certainly not in the national headlines.

For instance, a recent article in Huffington Post was entitled “Mixed legacy likely as China’s Olympics conclude”. More of the same came from the New York Times whose headline read “After the Glow of Games, What Next for China?” (two blog columnists at the New York Times conspicuously have bashed China: Nicholas Kristoff and Mike Nizza).

Mixed legacy likely as China’s Olympics conclude? The “mixed legacy”, from what I can see, lies with the Media, more importantly with their sources, and nowhere else.

Almost ALL American media has jumped on the “China-bashing” bandwagon, and has been sounding off about “human rights abuses in China”, picking up information sourced by - and here is the point, WHO? Two groups mainly:

Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders.

Yet Reporters Without Borders has been outed for years as nothing less than a U.S. State Department funded propaganda arm with links to Otto Reich (from Contra days) - see here http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona05172005.html.  I found literally thousands of press releases designed expressly for the Beijing Games, here: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25234

I first became aware of them when they mounted an obvious and ugly “media propaganda siege” against the Beijing float in the 2008 Rose Parade in my hometown of Pasadena, CA, Fall 2007. They displayed their “handcuff” graphic on a large billboard in town (a graphic photographed all over the world) and took over the local press (who were already openly sourcing a right-wing extremist, and therefore easy “prey”) barraging my city with more “information” than a 3rd year History of Human Rights Abuse in China PhD student could ever care about!! They also co-opted the the tiny Falun Gong club at Cal Tech.

One small moment of “poetic justice” occurred at the end of all this ugliness, when no one less than Diana Barahona (author of Reporters Without Borders Unmasked) was there, unintentionally, in the audience of the parade.

I wrote about it here, but only after ALL of the local press refused to address the issue: http://pasadenanewprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/01/reporter-without-borders-media-siege-of.html

Among other writings about this group, I wrote a recap of their anti-Olympic’s campaign. As a graphic designer, I could not help but notice their blatant use of propaganda, via clearly expensive and trendy graphics: http://pasadenanewprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/04/reporters-without-borders-anti-olympics.html.

More than anything I have discovered about this group, what is most alarming to me is their proliferation within our Media. They are used as an almost constant source for “news” on a daily basis. Yet, one finds right out there in the open, information coming from them, that is either biased or bogus.

Take their 2008 Annual Report “Freedom of the Press Worldwide” http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25595.  Reporters Without Borders has built a reputation (and bank account) by outing censorship of journalists around the world - yet give this ridiculous 2008 assessment for the United States, which contains almost nothing more than:

ONE (count ‘em) Iraqi journalist detained in Guantanamo

ONE blogger, Josh Wolf, got three paragraphs detailing his plight

A big plug for the Shield Law

A plug for the Freedom of Information Act (an act that has become a tool for the Right to attack public institutions like public schools)

And that’s it! (come on!)

People around the world have called RWB out for giving out the wrong information, seemingly based on how tight they are with the U.S. - or not. Here, Hossein Derakhshan writes about their misleading “information” on Iran:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/hossein_derakhshan/2006/12/reporters_without_borders_rsf.html

excerpt:
“Reporters Sans Frontier, sent out a press release announcing that Iran has blocked access to The New York Times, implying that the Islamic republic has expanded censorship to Western news websites and this is in line with the new anti-Western policies of president Ahmadinejad.

A few hours after that, through trusted journalists and friends in Tehran, I verified the report and realized that almost none of the websites mentioned in the report, including the New York Times were filtered.”

In Rwanda, they noticed some funky stuff going on as well: Rwanda: Reporters Without Borders Pulls a Scam Again
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802290947.html

This incredibly prolific spread of information (I would call it “dirt”) condemning other countries is super-alarming to me, because I often find it clearly politically motivated. Yes, the information exists, but what is not mentioned is how it has been selected and literally shoved down the throats of the entire nation, via the Media, via Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch.

I wrote about the obvious benefits of all this to the Bush Administration here: http://pasadenanewprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/08/bush-gets-gold.html

Human Rights Watch is up for questioning as well.

For more information on Human Rights Watch, Read Paul Treanor’s excellent (and forgotten) article here:
Who is behind Human Rights Watch?
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html

Robin Kelley, professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at  USC, also noted in a recent lecture that Human Rights Watch does not currently address ANY human rights issues in the United States (unlike their past good work with prison abuse here).

I also noticed that they have “stepped in” as THE most-used source, replacing Reporters Without Borders during the Olympics. Could the fact that Human Rights Watch opened a headquarters in Paris last Fall have anything to do with that? How close are the two organizations?

I’m not saying this group is all bad, I am NOT saying that human rights are not important.

But both organization’s “work” in helping America’s media to condemn the Beijing Olympics, is nothing less than highly suspicious and needs to be looked into, if only to prevent something like this from happening again. These embarrassing media games, are below the dignity of our great country.

That said, the grace of the Chinese in ignoring this petty “media siege” and continuing on with their work producing the Games, is awe-inspiring.

By James Shen

I recently wrote an article “Mainstream Western media stages Blemishing China Marathon” which was posted on a number of blogs and websites. Many comments were received, most were generally supportive or partly positive, while a few readers expressed their criticisms especially over my observations on politics and problems in the US or the influence of the mainstream Western media.

Some Western readers felt the discomfort of being criticized by an supposedly “outsider” (BTW, I resent that idea because I am a Chinese American with 24 years of experience of studying, living and working in the West), but it is in fact an intended simulation exercise for them to get a taste of how it feels to be criticized by outsiders. Hopefully this will help some develop the skill set to see things from different perspectives.

There are also comments that urge me to write follow up articles either to continue criticisms on the Western media or to provide more balanced and less emotional observations on differences and problems of China and the West.

My first article was inspired by a total off-balance in the Western media coverage of Beijing Olympics, and the intention was to draw attention from people to this issue and urge Western media and their reporters to rekindle their much preached doctrines of objectivity and independence. It was the hope of the article to promote the Olympic spirits of mutual understanding and tolerance so that we can share “a better and peaceful world” in “these increasingly troubled times.”

The article also was not intended to invite or intensify arguments about different views people have about the world around them, be it religious freedom in China or racial tensions in the US.

I am neither motivated nor qualified to offer much observation on a wide range of issues and challenges facing both the West and China. I am an ordinary person who usually enjoys blog writing in Chinese about family, friends, food, fun and travel. I am or was a Christian who is now increasingly attracted by the fundamentals of Daoism and Buddhism. I am more interested in learning than offering at this point. So let this article be the final one from me about the issue of Western media coverage on China.

The party is finally over

2008 Olympics just closed in Beijing and the central scene of the closing ceremony was a grand party between the audience, volunteers, officials and athletes from 204 countries. It may not be as spectacular as the opening ceremony but the idea of harmony and friendship was nevertheless presented successfully.

Although I was hoping that the presentation from London would be more centered on old British traditions, double-deck bus and umbrellas did give us a unique and truthful image of London – the one I knew very well. Let’s wish London all the best with a hassle free Olympics in 2012. By the way, it was not my intention to encourage anyone to protest in London in 2012, and the Chinese is encouraged to show the world the wisdom of restraint and generosity not to retaliate with any law-breaking protests, biased coverage or vandalism in the 2012 London Olympics.

Time to clean up China’s own house

As for the Chinese, there are a lot to be concerned about after the grand party of 2008 Beijing Olympics is over. It is time to clean up the post-party mess in Beijing and start to refocus on domestic issues and various ongoing and pending reforms.

While the China coverage by mainstream Western media is often tainted by self-serving motives and tend to be unconstructive in many ways, many problems or symptoms pointed out by foreign papers are areas where China needs improvements. Without doubt, the contemporary challenges faced by China are much more extensive and complex than what the Western media can comprehend, and these needs to be tackled one at a time at a pace which does not upset the country’s stability so that the fruits of reform so far can be preserved and shared.

I applaud the Chinese government in making the country’s “stability” its top priority ahead of all other objectives. It is also a great relief to see this Chinese government put its emphasis on “social harmony”, “people-orientation”, “environmental conservation” and “high quality economic development”.

Granted, there is still a vast pool of problems facing the country, especially at the local levels and in less-economically developed areas. There are structural flaws in the Chinese political system, government organization, legal system and social-economic hierarchy that need to be reformed. Corruption is still rampant, environments are damaged, and the fruits of 30 years of reform are not shared equally by all Chinese people. On top of these, there are territorial, racial and religious issues which are deeply-rooted in China’s history.

How should the Chinese deal with these? Should these be resolved through direct confrontations between the people, interest groups and the government by means of protests, vandalism, movements, negative press coverage, pressure tactics or violence & riots? If these confrontational approaches don’t work, should the Chinese seek a regime change? Who is going to take over? Will the new regime be a better or a worse one? Will there be another cultural revolution, more turmoil or even an internal war?

The Chinese people already paid a dear price for following the revolution theory of Karl Marx which advocated for achieving society transformation and resolve class conflicts through violence? Enough is enough!

It was the fear of endless internal political turmoil and the cultural revolution, regardless whether they were started from top to bottom or from bottom to top, that drove me and many of my peers away from China. Should there be more turmoil in the country, China will suffer, the Chinese people will suffer, and, make no mistake about it, the whole world will suffer too. Imagine the disruptions to the global supply chain and the international financial market, destabilization of surrounding countries, massive legal or illegal immigration, to name just a few. So, think again now, does the West still want to see turmoil in China?

Learn from the West selectively and wisely

With reference to this topic, there are lessons to be drawn from the Chinese history. Faced with threats of colonization by Western powers in the 19th century, Li Hongzhang, a prime minister and a leading reformer of the Qing Dynasty, suggested that “take what is strong (from the West) to make up our weakness and pick what are good and suitable to follow” (取彼之长，益我之短，择善而从).

There is much to learn from the West by the Chinese government in areas such as the tactful handling and use of media (both domestic and international), public relations and creation of legal and peaceful venues for aggravated citizens to express their grief and opinions. There is also much to learn from the West by the Chinese people in areas such as taking advantage of peaceful and legal ways to express anger and grievances as well as government lobbying. Nevertheless, don’t learn from the illegal Western protestors and hooligans at Beijing Olympics – they are bad examples to be avoided.

At the end of the day, resolving China’s problems will depend on the wisdom of the Chinese people and leadership which are to be drawn mostly from the rich Chinese culture, traditions and heritage. Learning from the West should be selective without external pressures and any attempts to transplant other country’s success will most likely fail. A system with Chinese characteristics is definitely the way to go.

China does not need the approval of the West

Constructive suggestions from the West, whether from media, politicians, business people and friendly groups and citizens, should always be encouraged and heard with great respect. For those who are hostile or unfriendly, however, the best response to them is simply ignoring them. Arguing with those who have preconditioned mindset, questionable objectives and ill intentions is a waste of time.
“China doesn’t need the approval of the Western media” and “China has emerged as an economic power in the last twenty years without the blessing of the West,” a reader commented on my first article. Indeed, every Chinese has worked really hard to get to where the country is now, and the “mouth water” of the unfriendly Western media can not take it away or dampen China’s prospects.

Final suggestion

My final advice to the Western media – Try to be objective, constructive, respectful and gracious. Too much bad mouthing will only serve to further shrink its influence, creditability and relevance. Learn from many leading Western businesses in China which have both contributed to the country and thrived together with it.

My final suggestion to the Chinese people is borrowed from Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” – “Go your own way; let others talk!”

————————————————————————————-

James Shen is a US-based independent business analyst supporting multinational companies that seek cohesive growth in China. He is a native of Beijing and a naturalized U.S. citizen. He studied in the UK in the 1980s and has lived in the US in the past 19 years.

Synopsis

This is a follow-up article of “Mainstream Western media stages Blemishing China Marathon”. With the Beijing Olympics closing successfully, the author calls China to clean up its own house and draw selectively from the West. However, China’s past economic success was not built on Western blessing and it does not need the approval of the West. Those who are hostile and ill-intentioned should simply be ignored and deemed irrelevant.

By: Chinationreport Editor

Allegedly three Chinese Gymnasts are under 16, the minimum age allowed to compete in the Olympic gymnastics. This incident has caused serious global consequences, namely:

• America lost one to two gold medals in the Beijing Games.
• The hard work of American gymnasts is not fairly awarded and recognized.
• The feelings of 300 million Americans are hurt.
• The feelings of Chinese gymnasts are also hurt. They insist that they did nothing wrong.

The Chinese government denies this allegation and has since shown various official documents and explanation to prove its innocence.

According to numerous sources, the pre-war Iraq intelligence was forged. The Huffington Post reports on August 5th, 2008:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.
Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery - adamantly denied by the White House - was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

By now we also know that the forged CIA intelligence has had and is still having some severe global consequences, namely:

• A war has been waged against Iraq.
• Saddam was captured and executed, followed by domestic violence in Iraq and increased tensions between US and Iran.
• Over 4000 American soldiers lost their lives.
• An Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths due to the Iraq War (range of 733,158 to 1,446,063). Out of a national sample of 1,499 Iraqi adults, 22% had one or more members of their household killed due to the Iraq War (poll accuracy +/-2.4%). – Source: Wikipedia.org/Iraq-War
• During an NPR interview on March 3rd 2008, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War explains that Americans will spend decades treating the physical and psychological wounds of Iraq veterans — and when the economic consequences of the invasion are taken into account, the costs are staggering. – NPR.org
• Indirect consequences may include: US record budget deficit, record oil price, US and global financial crisis

On August 24, 2008, I searched ‘CIA Forged Document’ and ‘under age gymnasts’ on Google with the following results:

Results 1 - 10 of about 59,600 for cia forged document

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,110,000 for under age gymnasts

My dear loyal visitors:

I am not trying to defend China on this age controversy. I am not trying to accuse the USA on its CIA intelligence. History will be our best judge. I ask why our freedom loving Western citizens, given the dramatic different impact of these two incidents, you are more outraged by China’s unproven cheating than America’s well-documented lying?

If China is proven wrong, the medals can be returned to the USA. When USA is proven wrong, can any lives be returned to their loved ones?

Despite reports, Chinese hope Olympic guest love their “house”

By Teresa Shen

It was a special moment, to see Li Ning touch the fire to the majestic torch. The flames spiraled swiftly up and burst into fiery orange, strong and determined. An estimated 15% of the world population watched this, a historic moment that lit the hearts of many people.

The Beijing Olympics is in full swing now, whether or not one likes the idea of China hosting it. Soon, with a flourishing Chinese brush, the closing ceremony will draw a hopefully spectacular period to this world party. It is sometimes hard to believe that so much hard work, training, time, money, excitement and genuine feeling can be put into a short 16 days. But then, it is like my mom hosting a Christmas party for friends. She busied herself senseless scrubbing the floors, cleaning the whole house, and making tons of food with the sole wish to make her guests happy. When they left, my family and I ended up eating leftovers for a week. But the guests loved our house, just as the Chinese hope their foreign guests love their “house”. It seems that the uncontrollable flow of tourists has been unhindered by the negative portrait the main media paints of China.

For more than a week, I have not slept a full night. I set three alarms before I sleep, on my watch, my cell phone, and my clock to get up at a scheduled time and watch the games live on CCTV. Everyone seems to get a cheer in these Games. The Chinese home crowd loves to thunder out their approval. Every athlete on the field, even one who might snatch away the gold from a favored Chinese athlete, receives energetic applause. After all, these are the Olympics, and the host should be gracious.

However, despite the spirit of the Games demonstrated by Olympics volunteers, athletes, and most Chinese people and tourists, the mainstream Western media continues their negative reports. Many criticisms seems quite strained, even amusing. I was confused by the news of 300 Bibles being confiscated from Americans who tried to bring them into China. What would they have done with these Bibles? Sell them? Or did they truly think that China needed those 300 Bibles, when the country prints more than 8 million a year? The mainstream media cries for religious freedom in China. Maybe I was dreaming that my family and I worshipped in a Beijing church, stampeded for chocolate eggs on Easter in a Beijing garden, and saw Bibles on sale at Beijing bookstores? I did not receive a bullet in my head for being a Christian. Whatever the Bible bringers wanted to do, they have the obligation to respect the law of any country they are entering, even if it feels idiotic. Sulking in the airport despite being asked to leave is quite embarrassing behavior. One side note, I have never tasted a dog penis, or seen one on a plate in China. CNN really likes to go to some weird, rare restaurants and put it all over their article.

So far, there were surprisingly few protests in Beijing, except for isolated incidents involving mainly tourists. I fail to realize what vandalizing a Novotel Peace Hotel room in Beijing, then running away without paying the bill, will do for the development of religious freedom. Unless having this freedom means I can walk into the Shawnee Inn and start splashing paint on the walls? Little groups of protests have been organized in Beijing, with the mainstream media drooling after them. It was no wonder that the demonstrators were detained immediately, since none of the protests were in the protest zones! Although I love the right to protest, in many countries demonstrators must stay within a restricted area. My parents protested in England against the Chinese Government’s handling of the Tiananmen incident in 1989. It was a very cold morning and my dad stepped outside the protest zone to warm himself under the sun. He was promptly handcuffed by British police, dragged away, and thrown into a cell without food or water. Because my mom wanted to stay with him, she also spent many hours crying for coffee in a separate cell. After their release, the press was not interested in hearing my parents’ story. It seems strange that now the media races after the illegal protestors, encouraging their infringement of law with positive reports. Luckily, most of the Chinese public seems unperturbed by protestors, intent on just celebrating the hard-won Games. One response from an old Chinese lady to a protestor in the Tiananmen Square was to fan him. She probably couldn’t understand a word the protestor was yelling. Seeing how hot it was outside, she started fanning him in sympathy. Maybe if the protestors are really concerned about human rights and freedom for China’s people, they should start shouting their slogans in Chinese? How else would the message be understood?

While the mainstream media competes to find skeletons in China’s closet, our wonderful athletes compete for the gold. Michael Phelps has cut through the water for those record-breaking eight gold medals. Track and Field competitions are in full motion. The tough, suspenseful swings and leaps of the gymnastics battle have finally ended with a beautiful gold for Shawn Johnson. She deserved this one, and her friendly smile towards everyone was quite touching. Whatever age the young Chinese gymnasts are, they also deserved their share in the glory with their amazing performance. Personally, I do think some have features looking too young to be that of sixteen year olds. As of now, there is not enough evidence to prove it. Overall, after all the years of preparation, the Olympics are coming to a blissful end. Many countries’ leaders have gone to China. Many tourists have cheered in the stadiums and wandered around the real Beijing. Many Chinese people have fulfilled their hopes to host a grand world party and welcome friends of across the globe. Hopefully, this can be the beginning of understanding between cultures, and more constructive dialogue in areas like human rights and environmentalism. Already, positive changes are happening in China. Despite the media barrage about the smog in Beijing, the Chinese Government had implemented a $17 billion plan to lessen pollution way before the Olympics. Though it does not seem to have worked yet, the effort is sincere. Labor laws guaranteeing overtime pay and a social security program have been passed. Much more will come, but at the pace China can adjust to. Change cannot, and should not, be forced.

As more people see and feel other cultures, they will become less daunted by the differences that often lead to fear and condemnation. For those who have been following the Olympics, enjoy the last few days of the splendid party!

The author is a 17 year old Chinese American (ABC) high school student in the US who studied in the US and China intermittently. She is a published bilingual (English and Chinese) novelist and a student columnist for the local newspaper in the US which published this article recently.

Original post By: Mike Adams at: http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/2908/2/

The author lists the faked Olympic items: • The weather is fake: Beijing is usually a smog pit with very polluted air. Beijing is made clean overnight by faking. Manufacturing plants are shut down. People and cars are ordered to stay home to ease traffice jam. • The free speech is fake: All the freedom protestors are denied permission. Or they may be arrested. • The opening ceremony was faked: The fireworks were faked using pre-programmed computer generated images. The singing was lip-synced! • The Internet access is censored: Fake free access. • Swimmer Michael Phelps’ food is fake: Consuming a whopping 12,000 calories a day, Michael Phelps is a junk food junkie powered by empty calories. While you can get away with that when you’re 23 and exercising six hours a day, if Phelps continues his ingestion of fake food beyond his peak training years, he’ll soon have REAL diabetes and obesity. Fat makes you float, by the way, so it might actually provide real buoyancy to his swimming career… • The ages and passports are faked: The Chinese gymnastics team won gold, helped in part by a tiny gymnast. The IOC apparently has no interest in investigating this apparent fraud. Most of the athletes are real, of course, but the whole show surrounding it is fake, fake, fake! It’s all a fabricated show to keep the world occupied while your money, your health and your future is stolen from you by the criminal institutions of the world (governments, corporations, etc.), many of which are actually sponsoring the Olympics. Much in America is fabricated, too… Now, just in case you think China is the only country engaged in fakery, the author reminds you that the United States is just as fake, but in different ways. In the U.S.: • The war on terrorism is fake: It was all fabricated to keep the population in a state of fear so they wouldn’t notice their freedoms being stolen away. • The mainstream media is fake: The news is largely fabricated or selectively edited to brainwash American consumers into thinking they live in a free country. Corporate press releases are run as “news” and any real news that threatens big advertisers is routinely censored. • The money supply is fake: The U.S. is running on monetary fumes, borrowing trillions from countries like China that actually have REAL money. • The housing bubble was fake: As publicly predicted here nearly two years ago, the housing bubble was fake, creating false wealth that created the impression that the economy was doing well. The whole thing was a charade, of course, and now housing values are plummeting and consumer spending is in a tailspin. • Health care is fake: There’s no “health” in health care, and the entire disease industry in the United States is based on keeping people sick, ignorant and bankrupt. • The corporate green movement is fake: Corporations love to act like they’re really “green” even as they continue polluting the planet. • Even the breasts are fake! The U.S. is the plastic surgery capital of the world, where moms are now giving their teenage daughters breast augmentation surgery as a high school graduation present. The author concludes: It’s quite fitting that American viewers who live in a fabricated American reality can watch the fake Olympics by tuning into a fake television network where they can watch a fake opening ceremony that celebrates competition among fraudulent Olympics participants who compete for the only thing that’s still real in this global economy: GOLD! Are you upset at this? Why?

By ASSAF LICHTASH

The politics surrounding Beijing’s hosting the Olympic Games have exposed two interrelated phenomena: the wounds and self-consciousness of the Chinese, and the extent to which the West misunderstands them. But they also represent a significant opportunity to better understand a country that will play a more influential role this century than previously.

For several thousand years, China existed as a regional hegemony. Its soft power extended to the far reaches of East Asia, and its riches drew bold explorers from the West. China’s very name - the “Middle Kingdom” - indicates it has long viewed itself as a leader, and was indeed long regarded as such. Yet by the middle of the 19th century, China had become a vastly different place. Foreign invasions and occupations devastated China’s national pride. The most traumatic of these were the British Opium Wars of the 1860s and Japan’s brutal occupation prior and during World War II. For a nation that had traditionally dominated its region, the slicing and dicing of the homeland by foreigners constituted a profound humiliation from which the Chinese are still recovering.

The years following the war saw a beleaguered China emerge unified, thanks to Mao Zedong. While his rise to power and solidification of communist rule featured extraordinary brutality - including the political persecution of hundreds of thousands - Mao ushered in a period of massive transformation and an invigoration of Chinese national pride. His exclamation on independence in 1949 that “the Chinese people are back on their feet” still reverberates in China. Like Russia’s current image of Stalin, the Chinese (many of whom did not live under Mao) see his legacy as the man who unified China against all odds and reclaimed its dignity. Such is the power of a national symbol in China.

For the Chinese, Beijing’s

hosting of the Olympics is yet another national symbol, a step in reclaiming the national pride stripped away 150 years ago. In this regard, the discourse headed by prominent Western leaders such as Angela Merkel of Germany and Gordon Brown of the UK prior to the Games on targeting the opening ceremony for boycott is indicative of how misunderstood China is, and the extent to which such threats could backfire.

CRITICS RIGHTFULLY point out China’s myriad political shortcomings and problems. China’s violence toward the Tibetan minority and its own citizens, its support of Sudan’s genocidal regime, and its harmful environmental policies are surely unacceptable. We must demand of China that it assume the role of global leadership more responsibly. Nevertheless, the attempt to bully it into changing its policies through a symbolic Olympic boycott only exacerbated these problems.

The core of the problem is a failure to adequately distinguish between the policies and shortcomings of the Chinese government and the views and aspirations of the Chinese people. The threat of an Olympic boycott embarrassed the latter, while doing little to sway the behavior of the former.

Despite China’s rapid ascendancy, we must remember that the Chinese people are deeply suspicious of the intentions of foreigners; at the same time, they desperately wish to be included in the global community. Calls for boycotts and other forms of delegitimization, rather than encouraging China to change, have deepened these public feelings of suspicion. Overall, they have made it less likely China will respond positively to the goading of Western democratic powers.

Even those Chinese who oppose the policies of the Communist Party of China have rallied around it when they felt their national identity under attack. Continued threats to delegitimize China will push the Chinese people further into this defensive posture. If we truly want to positively impact China, our engagement has to be constructive and carefully weighed. Gradual engagement, rather than rhetoric of shaming China, should be our modus operandi, if we wish to avoid alienating the Chinese people. After all, it is the will of the Chinese people, rather than any one particular policy of the communist party, that represents the best long-term hope of greater democratization and political freedom taking hold.

PAYING HOMAGE to China’s rich history and culture at the Olympics is a good starting point. This should be concomitant, though, with calls on China to improve itself on various issues. Criticism must be aimed squarely at the CCP while keeping China’s national pride intact, as US President George W. Bush wisely chose to administer in Bangkok on his way to the opening ceremony.

Western governments should enrich relations between the Chinese community and their own by means of cultural exchange and cooperative projects. The message needs to be unequivocal: We respect China and celebrate its culture, but demand responsibility on China’s part. Mismanagement of foreign policy, including decisions by Western leaders to pursue delegitimizing actions such as cultural boycotts, will create greater distrust bereft of constructive policy impact.

The writer is a graduate of the departments of international relations and East Asian studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in Chinese studies.

By now everybody must have got the news: China’s national hero hurdler Liu Xiang is out!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/michael_farber/08/18/liu.xiang/?bcnn=yes

http://www.chinationreport.com/liuxiangpictures.html

Liu Xiang won China\’s first Man\’s Gold at Athens Olympics

Liu Xiang’s pain is China sorrow. His Olympic dream is torn into pieces, right in front of the 1.3 billion people. The sky has fallen, on the empty lanes and tracks. The country in tears! The Bird’s Nest falling apart. Along with the glory of the opening night, the controversy around the 9 year old girl’s lip-syncing, Liu Xiang, too, has written his chapter into the history of this year’s Olympic Games in the most heartbreaking way.

But why?

Adam Thompson writes in The Wall Street Journal Blog August 18th:

“Our closest equivalent is Tiger Woods — who, like Mr. Liu, competes in an individual sport and has his image plastered everywhere but the moon. Both have also broken racial barriers, casting aside stereotypes about who can succeed in their respective sports. One difference: when Mr. Woods announced his season-ending injury after winning the U.S. Open this summer it made huge headlines, though no one got morose about it.

But imagine if, instead of playing in four majors a year, Mr. Woods played in one every four years, and just before his big event, news of his injury broke. That’s not even taking into account the nationalism that raises the emotional stakes higher for fans during the Olympics. It’s hard to guess how Americans would react. Have we ever experienced injury news this wrenching on a national level?”

On August 5th Frederic W. Barnes appeared on Fox News ‘Special Report with Brit Hume.’ According to original transcript provided on Foxnews.com, when asked about his view on the Olympics, Barnes says:

Barnes:

I don’t care how many other stories they do that are not about the athletes. I don’t want to read them! I don’t want to hear them!

Look, it was a terrible idea to give these games to China. The Chinese are going to run them like Hitler ran them in 1936!

But here is what matters. Here is what I want to see. — I want to see the American basketball team, see if they are as good as the greatest basketball team ever, the “Dream Team” in 1992 with Barkley and Jordan…

That’s what I want to see. I want to get–look, horrible politics there. As Charles says, what do you expect out in a dictatorship? But let’s concentrate on the athletes.

Read the full text here.

Is this horrible statement from pure ignorance or evil intention? I am ashamed!! I am ashamed to hear this statement from a station that runs in my house every day. I am ashamed that this kind of necked China bashing is happening still today, not just twenty or even ten years ago. I am ashamed that this comes from someone that is a well-educated journalist, who happens to have studied history.

Please don’t use the same excuse that he is merely comparing the Chinese government with Hitler and NOT the Chinese people! Does he really believe that the Chinese are stupid? Don’t we read English? He says the term Chinese!! Chinese people!! 1.4 billion of us, if we count all of us around the globe!

Barnes and Fox News, your excuses won’t fly. So please explain to the Chinese people the link between Hitler and Chinese people! We demand an answer!

Barnes and Fox News, you are for democracy. How about having a vote on Olympics hosting rights? You know that Chinese people will prevail in this vote!

Barnes and Fox News, why is it such a tragedy for you to accept that the world’s oldest civilization, largest population, the people that count for 20% of the world’s population, is embracing the Olympics? We are embracing it not because we are told to by our ‘dictators’, we are embracing it from the bottom of the heart!

Barnes and Fox News, wake up!

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Dear readers,

Please join this blog to send Barnes and Fox News your strong voice!

Thank you!

Your Chination Report Editor

What does the Olympic Games mean to China, Chinese and you?

$42 million spent, largest delegation, record number of volunteers and new buildings, massive shutdown of production to control air, change of work hours to ease traffic, the whole city of Beijing is trying to learn speaking English… bad press, terror threats, protests during torch relay… human rights record…

90% of Beijing people say that the Olympic Games are important to them personally. 76% of all Chinese feel the same way. Do we understand the reasons behind?

Poll Excerpt:
“Overwhelming numbers of Chinese say next month’s Olympics will help their country’s tattered image abroad, and they predict the Beijing Games will be successful, according to a poll released Tuesday.”            - Associated Press

Read more: Poll: Most in China expect Olympics to help Image, China’s Agony of Defeat.