A journalist’s guide to reporting the Beijing Games: …Please remember: Chinese who love their country are called “nationalists.” Never use this word for Americans, French, Tibetans and other civilized peoples who love their country or territory. When demonstrators protest over Tibet they are acting in a heartfelt, spontaneous way, waving pretty flags you would be…
Showing all posts tagged China
Not just the Olympic focus
Something to enchant from Chinese design students and a fine example of combining technology and the beauty and tradition of history: Find more videos like this on DESIGN CHALLENGE PROJECT More here and here.
China clamps down on press freedom
I was interviewed yesterday on the Australian current affairs program, The Wire, about China’s policy of internet censorship during the Olympics, my forthcoming book, The Blogging Revolution and the tendency of Western media to demonise the Communist state: With eight days to go before the start of the Beijing Olympics, controversy continues to plague this…
Invisible Tibet
Tibetan blogger Woeser, New Statesman, July 31: Then there are the thousands of Tibetans in Beijing. Tibetan college students have been told to go home this summer, while students at Tibetan schools are not allowed to leave the school premises. The Tibetan Studies Centre has given its staff a rare long holiday: even those we…
Real freedom bites
Are you feeling that sweet Olympic spirit yet? The Chinese authorities confirmed today that the 20,000 foreign journalists covering the Olympic Games will not have unrestricted access to the Internet during their stay. Kevin Gosper, the head of the IOC’s press commission, admitted today: “I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the…
Confusion through the Beijing smog
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China: Western critics of Beijing should be careful what they wish for during the Games, writes Antony Loewenstein Amnesty International’s latest report on China’s human rights record makes for depressing reading. “We’ve seen a deterioration in human rights because of…
Women stay home
So much for the Olympic dream: 10,000 athletes from 200 countries are about to gather in Beijing under the banner “One World, One Dream.” But for sportswomen from countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran, that dream remains unfulfilled. While the International Olympic Committee bans any gender discrimination, these Gulf countries invoke “cultural and…
How not to help the Chinese, part 9
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China: Sport isn’t the only thing on the minds of multinationals in Beijing, writes Antony Loewenstein Human rights issues? What human rights issues? With only a few weeks until the start of the Beijing Games, this seems to be the…
Communist Party enforcement
David Bandurski, Far Eastern Economic Review, July: They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the “red vanguard.” But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet.…