Lo the changing landscape!
March 23rd, 2008In my last post, The double-edged sword of Olympic sponsorship, I said this:
[Olympic sponsors] can take solace in the fact that although activists of all stripes will work to associate the Games with a variety of issues, it appears that they have, at least in the minds of the majority, not yet successfully done so.
It is arguable whether the statement was true at the time that I wrote it. It’s possible that given Spielberg’s resignation and the Uyghur “terrorist plots” among others, that some of China’s most sensitive issues have already been irreversibly tied to the Beijing Olympics. I also stated that the landscape could change; and change it did. A mere week later, we are standing on an entirely new precipice and I can say unequivocally: the statement is wrong.
In the foreign media coverage of the recent riots in Tibet, the subject of the Olympics and the effect of these events on the Games featured prominently in most stories. However, tying the riots to the Olympic Games was not only prevalent in foreign coverage but also in coverage by the Chinese media (a.k.a. the Chinese government). In fact, the Chinese government’s desire to link the events in Tibet to the Olympics has left me scratching my head.
When it comes to the issue of Darfur, China has for a long time strived to separate its support of the Sudanese government from the Olympic Games, calling the link “totally unreasonable”. The message on the Uyghur terrorism story and the Tibet riots, however, is completely different. What’s the reason for the change in strategy?
Mark Magnier of the LA Times pointed out* that regardless of the foreign media’s perspective, the Chinese government’s playbook has been largely effective on the home front. It is true that tying the Olympics to these events makes sense from a local perspective. Given the enthusiasm for this year’s Olympics, the Games are unlikely to lose their veneer among the Chinese public and the impression that these Tibetan and Uyghur movements are working to sabotage the Olympic Games can even serve as a rallying point for the Chinese.
The Uyghur terrorism story was used by the government to validate its crackdown of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, and it could be that linking the story to the Olympics was seen by the public as significant justification. Right now though, the foiling of that “terrorist plot” is more reminiscent of the Gulf of Tonkin incident than any real act of counter-terrorism**.
This was also the strategy employed by China over the last week; the government blamed the Dalai “clique” for inciting violence in an effort to undermine the Olympic Games.
But why? Does China forget that it isn’t just playing to a local audience? With this year’s Olympics approaching, Beijing has to realise that the world is watching, and not only watching but waiting for it to screw up.
These recent events have shown the breadth of the perception gap between western and Chinese audiences. However, given the international media coverage, you do not have the luxury of crafting separate messages for China and abroad. China had to block foreign media outlets and YouTube to stop its message from being undermined locally. Even while it may have effectively controlled its message here in China, the government was completely off-key with respect to international audiences. By linking the riots in Tibet to the Olympics, Beijing appears to be working to sabotage this summer’s Olympic Games.
*As the LA Times’ articles appear to be blocked in China, link goes to one of his pieces that appeared in the Hong Kong’s Standard.
**For those of you whose knowledge of US history is even worse than my own, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was used as justification for the increased involvement of the US in Vietnam. The severity of the incident was largely overstated and the resolution authorising the war was supposed to have been written by members of Congress spoiling for war even before the incident occurred. I was also tempted to draw analogies to the USS Maine or weapons of mass destruction. It appears we Americans are experts at going to war under somewhat precarious rationales.
UPDATE: Xinhua has a great headline this weekend: China garners broad international support over Tibet riots. It’s a broad international support second only to that of the US’s invasion of Iraq. Looking through the Xinhua article, it’s basically a laundry list of countries that rely heavily on (mostly economical) support from China. But hey, if North Korea’s on board, who am I to be a skeptic?
