The rape of the Olympic spirit

President Hu Jintao's claim of "One World, One Dream" is turning into the Beijing 2008 Olympics Shame Games.

Despite round the clock crisis talks and China's claimed lifting of China's Great Firewall for all foreign media; we are yet to see just how far this extends beyond the Games facilities. China and the IOC are now in damage control mode, carefully prepared statements claiming "misunderstandings" and corroborating each others comments.

What has not been addressed however is just how far the Great Firewall, Chinese security and the over jealous local police will impact on foreign media's movements, operations and communications using satellite, the internet, and smart phones. How far away from the Olympic venues are the media allowed to stray to report on China and its citizens.

For the rest of China's netizens, the China's Great Firewall and monitoring will remain firmly in place.

With the IOC directing focus on the Great Firewall, the removal of spyware - installed in hotels to monitor phone and internet traffic by staff, guests and visitors alike - has been conveniently overlooked. Installation of this spyware was made compulsory by China's paranoid government. The "lifting" statement inferred that the internet will be "freely available" for the media, but access to an open internet by foreign visitors is vague and may possibly only apply to select major 5 star hotels in Beijing and possibly Shanghai.

Let us return to the beginning of this charade.

Following completion of negotiations for the 2008 Beijing Games, the IOC proudly released a 273-page guide to coverage for the foreign press with the introduction:

The Chinese government will honour its commitments in the bid process ... to provide quality and convenient services to the media in accordance with international practice and the successful experience from previous games, so as to satisfy the demands of the media covering the Olympic Games in China.

Now the IOC's reprehensible admission of two years of deceit and misleading statements appears to suggest a deliberate conspiracy to disregard agreed conditions key to the granting of the 2008 Olympics to China.

Such an admission can only be considered as a sign of the IOC's willingness to deliberately desecrate the true spirit of the Olympics in order to cover up ineptitude in negotiating the agreement and a lack of intestinal fortitude to enforce conditions formally agreed to between China and the IOC.

If that is not the case, then the IOC appears to have deliberately signed off on an unenforceable agreement knowing the outcome and participated in a two-year campaign of deceit.

If it is the case, then the IOC can now proudly claim direct responsibility for the increasing level of abuse of human rights heaped on millions of China's citizens, especially the poor and disadvantaged, in the name of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in order to achieve mianji (face) for the Chinese Government.

The media were already revealing flaws in the credibility of the intense high profile media campaign uncovering "terrorist plots", "bombings" and arrests of "active terrorist cells". Close scrutiny, however, suggest an amateurish staged and orchestrated campaign as a convenient excuse for the arrests, executions and use of force against Tibetans, Uighurs and Muslims.

Many of the "incidents" can be blamed on the carrying of volatile material in unsafe containers on all public transport, including aircraft. Fires and explosions from such accidents are common in China and many developing countries.

Also done in the name of the 2008 Beijing 2008 Olympics is the abuse, pain and suffering imposed on the millions of Chinese residents and migrant workers who were ejected from their homes and businesses in and around Beijing with inadequate and even zero compensation, just to give Beijing a green and open image for the Games.

The drought stricken farmers of Hebei had their precious water diverted to irrigate the landscaped greens of Beijing. Visitors will be unaware of the misery hidden behind the kilometres of the newly constructed and decorated brick walls in and around Beijing.

The validity of the IOC and BOCOG explanations for the "misunderstandings" fail under scrutiny. Both parties appear to have conveniently overlooked the long audit trail of media releases and interviews over the past two years that suggest a deliberate and premeditated campaign of deception to reduce the commitments of the original agreement. Just how much "misunderstanding" was involved during the years of negotiations for two Olympics Games between the IOC and China, and why was it all only one way?

On the media side, the 273-page media guide promised foreign journalists’ freedom to report from within China's borders in accordance with the practice of preceding Games within a timeline of January 1, 2007 to October, 17, 2008. Down the track the terms of reference become distorted including the oblique reference "the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee will meet its promises to allow foreign media websites to broadcast live TV broadcast of events". No other reporting, just events. Comments in this vein continued until finally, Kevin Gosper attempted to divert attention from the freedom of movement for the media and onto the internet. Careful wording and phraseology introduced a new term, "Games time" that featured consistently from then on. This phrase suggested the agreement differed greatly for the freedom of movement enjoyed by the media in the lead up to and during all previous Games.

This new phrase suggests that the media will be "free" to report only on Games events only and within the tight timeframe of the Games. The media is already restricted by time frames and "no go zones".

While pollution has always been the focus of the media, the Chinese Government's paranoia reached new highs in childish ways to manipulate data in order to comply with China's claims.

Late 2007, China rushed through urgent legislation making China's weather a State Secret. Under this legislation, it is illegal for any person or corporation, to collect or even record meteorological data (including hand written observations) and those found doing so would be arrested and charged with stealing state secrets. Such data cannot be used or sent out of the country.

While the legislation was intended to mask the increasing high levels of environmental degradation, desertification, dust storms and pollution, it also conveniently applied to all foreign Olympic related facilities. This made it impossible for team managers and health experts to monitor air quality and compare independent data with that of the "official data". Three stations in central Beijing recording very high air pollution levels were closed down. Two others were relocated to lesser polluted locations.

It was discovered that the sites of Beijing monitoring stations used to collect data for reporting on "blue sky days", were selective and set up in lesser polluted locations to improve average results.

The other problem of course is that China's national limits on major pollutants related to breathing problems and lung damage is below that of the World Health Organization and the European Union. Beijing's Air Pollution Index is riddled with problems and is not recognised internationally either, using values averaged over 24 hours rather than logging temporary dangerous peaks. It omits the finer particulate matter fractions and does not calculate the cumulative effect of pollutants. Ozone is also omitted thus masking health dangers on "blue sky days".

As China shifted the goal posts, the IOC has appeared to ignore their responsibility and duty of care for the health of athletes, support staff, media and spectators alike.

Surely, with such high profile international movers and shakers on the IOC, this apparent conspiracy could not be an exercise in covering up ineptitude and political unpleasantness! Is it possible that the foregoing is all wrong? Or, is it possible that corruption and reckless behaviour once again is plaguing the IOC.

A commitment made by China as part of the conditions to host the 2008 Olympics, was the use of the Olympics to improve the rights of its citizens. As far back as ancient Greece, the Olympic Spirit has a history of protecting human rights and preventing discrimination. These now form an integral part of the modern day Olympics and are enshrined in Principle 5 of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism. As a signatory to international human rights conventions, China has an overriding commitment to meet this obligation. There is undeniable evidence of blatant acts of discrimination by China in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Games. These are not only against spectators (foreign and local) and media but athletes qualified to participate as well.

China's blatant discrimination against, and the abuse of Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols of Inner Mongolians and many minority groups, is in direct breach of its obligations.

Whatever the motivation behind the "conspiracy", China and the IOC appear to have acted in concert to dishonestly and recklessly engineer means for China to avoid IOC penalties at the expense of key principles of the Olympic spirit. The cost has been the credibility, independence and non politicisation of the true spirit of the Olympic Games.

Such apparent reckless and dishonest acts could question the integrity, credibility and honesty of the IOC itself. In the event of apparent breaches of its own clearly defined obligations, could the members of the IOC be considered as fit and responsible persons charged to continue to carry out their duty in an unbiased and fair manner. Is there any future in the Olympic institution for officials who chose to ignore their responsibilities at such cost?

The reckless charge for mianji at the expense of the principles of the Olympic movement has resulted in diu lian (loss of face) for China and its government exposed for all to see on the international stage.

Diu lian for China has been the direct result of apparent continued blatant abuse of the individual as well as the manipulation of data designed to protect health and denigration of the spirit of the Olympics. This unfortunately reflects on the millions of ordinary Chinese who have made great personal sacrifices, including personal freedom (or whose personal freedom has been involuntarily sacrificed) in order to bring "honour and respect" to China in staging the 2008 Olympics.

How did it happen? Can the answer to the reckless behaviour by China's Communist Government be found in the teachings of Sun Tzu and the CCP principles?

For the PLA Obeying the Party comes before defending the country.

Deception requires initial diplomatic offensives to pre-empt … action to justify its action or to veil its true intentions.

It is even possible that Australian politician Senator Bob Brown was right in suggesting in a recent TV forum that Zimbabwe, Darfur and similar repressive dictatorships may be granted the right to host future Games. This should present no problems if the IOC signs off on an agreement with unenforceable "flexible" conditions as for Beijing.

Should the Games fail to live up to expectations for whatever reasons, (such as the dust storm at the same time last year) the Central Propaganda Department is ready with a massive well prepared media response laying the blame on the destructive, vindictive and anti Chinese western media, the evil and dangerous Dalai Lama and his terrorist clique, and all the rights groups for politicising and undermining China's unprecedented and glorious commitment to stage the most expensive and spectacular Olympic games in history.

While China's Communist Government officials may rant, rave and scream about the TV leak of its opening ceremony and seek revenge, it has only itself to blame for the growing degradation of its image and credibility on the global stage and lack of trust or support from the foreign media.

In the meantime let us sit back and enjoy the Beijing 2008 Shame Games, the most expensive games in history (provided the dust stays in the West).

The 2008 Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the Games that destroyed the integrity of the Olympic Spirit. Staged in an atmosphere of deceit, paranoia and pollution, the fun-filled freedom enjoyed in the preceding Games will be just a distant memory of what was supposed to be. The 2008 Beijing Olympics will go down in history as the "fun free" or "killjoy Games" compliments of the Chinese Communist Party and China's "anti-fun police".

As for the Olympics of the future?

Hopefully, London will hold the promise of a return to the true Olympic Spirit.

First, however, the IOC must remove the cancer of 2008.