Just when China's rulers thought that they would get away with Nazi-style Olympic propaganda (thanks to the U.S. media) freedoms rears it's ugly head.
Chinese police says a grenade assault that killed 16 police in restive western Xinjiang region on Monday was a "suspected terrorist" attack.
The violence comes four days ahead of the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympic Games.
The Xinhua news agency said two assailants drove a truck towards exercising border police officers in Kashgar, home of many Muslim Uighur people resentful of Chinese control on the region.
The authorities sould like Bush using fear of terrorism to bring the population in line and gain world sympathy. Could the administration decide to send military aide to help Beijing? After all, isn't Mr. Bush attending the Olympics as a sign of unity?
Chinese officials have thrown an almost smothering blanket of security across this capital of 17 million in preparation for the start of the Olympic Games on Friday. Above all else, Chinese leaders say, these Olympics will be “safe.”
[...]Even before that raid, Chinese officials had transformed Beijing into a giant fortress. Surface-to-air missiles take aim at the sky above the Olympic stadiums here. Surveillance cameras mounted on light poles scan sidewalks. Police officers search thousands of cars and trucks entering the city.
Even civilians have been called on to strengthen the motherland: Tens of thousands of middle-age and elderly residents wearing red armbands, reminiscent of the zealous Red Guard youth from decades ago, now patrol neighborhoods looking for even a slightly suspicious act or person.
But human rights advocates accuse the Chinese government of using the pretext of terrorism to silence dissent and clamp down on ethnic minority groups that chafe at rule by ethnic Han Chinese, who dominate the Communist Party leadership. Some security experts say many of the surveillance measures will probably stay in place after the Games, to bolster the reach of the authorities.
To hear Chinese officials tell it, the threats come from a dizzying array of malcontents: groups advocating independence in the western autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, Al Qaeda, and unstable individuals.
We can't allow human rights and terrorism to get in the way of huge profits.
Never before has an Olympics been staged in a market so big — and so underserved. Though capitalism has been a fact of life in China for years, no brand category has been captured the way, say, Wal-Mart dominates the U.S. retail market. Which means: Olympic sponsors are staring at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage and snare the Chinese consumer. Do it right, and the payoff could be massive.
Never mind such a minor details as the fact that the Chinese government cannot be trusted.
A senior White House official says staffers accompanying President Bush to China have been told to leave their BlackBerries at home, reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer.
The mobile e-mail blackout is the latest sign of U.S. concerns over Chinese cyber-spying. Sensitive presidential communications are always encrypted, but government cyber-security experts are worried about electronic eavesdropping on the BlackBerries, which are difficult to protect from snooping.
But despite the repression it is inspiring to see people fighting for their basic rights. We could be seeing the seed for a future revolution that will bring democracy to China. And the people there will do it without the help of Western politicians and media.
About 20 people angry about being evicted from their homes in central Beijing demonstrated Monday not far from Tiananmen Square, saying the Olympics should not curb their legal rights.
Uniformed police quickly surrounded the residential street where AP Television News video showed the group shouting about being kicked out of their homes and not getting proper compensation.
"We don't oppose the Olympics. But it's wrong for them to demolish our house. It's wrong," said protester Liu Fumei. AP Television News footage showed her screaming and scuffling with women in civilian clothes.
The police officers did not interfere, but women who said they were members of a neighborhood committee pushed and led the protesters away from the area. Neighborhood committees are not officially part of the government but work closely with police and other departments.
Hope lies with the people of the world to not buy into the propaganda.
Concerns about China's human rights record and its polluted air have dampened public interest around the world in the Beijing Olympics, a research group said.
The survey by Sport+Markt -- based on 1,000 telephone interviews with people aged between 16 and 69 per country -- showed the level of "interest" in the Olympics had decreased across the world over the last four years.
"The event in Tibet this spring as well as protests regarding the torch relay was a worldwide negative campaign for the Olympics in Beijing," Hartmut Zastrow, executive director at Sport+Markt, said in a note released on Friday.
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