Abusing the Olympic spirit

Chinese citizens are denied their basic civil and political liberties. For example:

• Chinese citizens cannot elect their own government;
• there is no freedom of speech and rampant censorship. In the Reporters without Borders' Annual World Press Freedom Index of 2005, the PRC ranked 159 out of 167 places;
• citizens are arrested and sent to jail simply because of the content of their private emails;
• more than 1.4 million Chinese citizens were forcibly removed out of Beijing to make room for the Olympics;
• according to the 2006 report by UN special reporter, torture is regularly used in Chinese prisons; and
• there is significant evidence pointing to continuance of religious persecution of Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and others.

The oppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement is extremely brutal and has the hallmarks of genocide. Falun Gong practitioners are denied basic civil rights - they are arrested, routinely tortured and send to prisons and forced labour and re-education camps bypassing any court proceedings. Others are used as slave labour to produce cheap goods for export. A recent report alleges that Falun Gong practitioners are locked up, medically tested and murdered so their corneas, heart, lungs, livers and kidneys can be stolen for sale to commercial customers.

To sum up, the Chinese authorities are clearly breaching international human rights standards. Furthermore, the exclusion of Falun Gong practitioners, independence for Tibet supporters and other categories of people by Chinese authorities from participation in the Olympics is in clear breach of the non-discrimination clause of the Olympic Charter.

Chinese international human rights practices

The Chinese government exports its human rights abuses to other countries such as Zimbabwe, Burma and Dafur.

There is also emerging evidence that Chinese authorities are using their influence to intimidate human rights activists. For example in late May 2008 the New York Chinese Consulate organised Chinese crowds, numbering several hundred, to physically and verbally attack Falun Gong practitioners over a number of days.

The mass mobilisation of pro-China activists to “defend” the torch relay in Canberra from protesting Tibetans and other human rights activists suggested the involvement of Chinese officials there too.

Public concern about China’s human rights abuses

The controversy associated with the Olympic torch relay was an expression of the fact that there is growing worldwide concern about continuing human rights abuse in China.

The protest movement also indicates that China has come of age. China is no longer romanticised by Westerners as Mao’s country of perpetual revolution, high on equality, low on economic wealth and of no local relevance. Contemporary China is starting to be seen for what it really is - a world power with global economic and military interests run by an autocratic government with all the human rights consequences resulting from such status.

Thus, today, different rules are starting to apply to the new China. The new rules apply not only because of its emerging world power status, but also because its power is starting to impact on people living in liberal democracies of the West.

Emergence of people’s power

This public awareness has resulted in the emergence of worldwide peoples’ movements which are able to articulate their demands and have an impact on public opinion. For example, the contemporary unrest in Tibet has mobilised many people of good will to focus not only on the Tibet situation, but also more broadly on the human rights situation in China. The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners has emerged as an effective grass roots movement. Many other non-government organisations were created around the world to address particular human issues.

The Western governments, being democratically elected, will have to reflect changing public opinion about China. This will lead to changes in government attitudes towards the Chinese authorities.