China Law Blog

Either way, he speaks the reality.

...tongue in cheek, or lost his mind, "it's never over til it's over" but then again maybe "the worst is over now"....and maybe it was super smart and deserving of an A++ to have that flaming flame go to Paris, London and San Francisco first instead of last...but personally I am going to give them a miss and with no regrets because I think the "spirit of the games" is now (but for the last 20 years too) about as far off the mark of the authentic spirit of the games as ancient Greece is from modern China...and may Confucius and Plato race down the finish line in their birthday suits...and let the best man win

Before giving Ogilvi and Hill Knowlton a not very plausible Nobel prize for client masochism, let's not forget that history won't end when the Olympics are over. And if anybody was foolish enough to orchestrate getting nailed for Darfur, Tibet, internal human rights and a devastated environment so that all this stuff would all peak well before the games letting the Chinese ride a happy wave to the finish line, they forgot another PR maxim. That the world audience won't remember the Olympic games for more than a week after they are over. But they WILL remember all the other stuff simply because it's all still around. So Kerry Brown's nice PR story makes for a very nice PR story. But that's all.

To our Chinese (and American) brothers and sisters. An Olympic National Anthem sung Italian style - still a bit nationalistic and perhaps it's PR just the same ( it's true) but elegant, in good taste, modest, civilized, united and democratic as befitting a small European democracy with a very long history...and please notice the long haired guy at the end (no discrimination) and our human president reaching for his handkerchief....and so Jing Jing and Ogilvi and etc. etc. please do listen and do take notice...could this be the right style and pitch of nationalism (if any needs to exist at all) for the 21st century?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSz0_XJD4s&feature=related

They say that the United States always does the right thing - all other options having been exhausted. China seems to be developing this way of working and like the US, it seems to be getting away with this. The size factor might have something to do with this.

Continuing to rely on this way of working is, of course, complacent but this might apply not just to China.

Not only that.

Consider the timing that China announced to the World that it would be willing to talk after "repeated requests from Dalai side" for dialogue, and the western leaders' collective sigh of relief after that ...

Also consider the timing of the first-round talk between Chinese government and representatives of Dalai Lama, right before Hu Jintao's arrival at Japan for the Chinese president's most important state visit this year, is it any wonder there is almost no public voice in Japan calling for boycotting Olympics?

Also watch the just finished live broadcasting of Olympic torch relay on Mt. Everest, where the relay team, consisted mostly of Tibetans, showed images of unity and teamwork between Tibetan and Han Chinese. If that's not exactly "One World, One Dream" then at least it's One China, One Team, isn't it?

With Olympic torch relay going on in China, drawing million of people in Guangzhou in festival atmosphere, the Chinese government announced that Tibet is open for domestic tourists, and will be open for international tourist in June.

Are you sure this is all designed by PR geniuses at Ogilvi and Hill Knowlton, not the work by Chinese?

The West may create the PR game, but who says Chinese are never good at it?

Yet more "PR Maestro" type of stuff coming out of China. (those guys will NEVER learn) And so maybe it was correct of someone else before me to say that "it's not over til it's over" in terms of "smooth sailing" from here on out through to the Olympic games. And they can block off the whole of the Himalayas and not only Everest and take the torch all the way up to the moon instead of just the summit and it won't help them.

Now the Chinese government is saying that the World must "respect the sovereignty" of Burma; that is, of the fascist government there run by a bunch of criminal generals (real and authentic "goons and thugs", those) who own and run that country with an iron fist (maybe not all that dissimilar from the way the Chinese run theirs) (birds of a feather fly together) and are detested by the population and are keeping someone who was legitimately elected locked up under house arrest for decades.

Giving comfort to and aiding and abetting those criminal generals (lest they might have to loosen up their grip even just a tiny bit) so that inernational Aid agencies and NGOs can only go in to help the one million Burmese people who are homeless, starving and destitute and getting more sick by the minute, "at the pace indicated by the Burmese government" (that is, at the pace dictated by the perceived political convenience of those criminal generals in Yangon whose only friends in the world are in the Chinese government in Beijing)

Meanwhile the Chinese also would like to bask in the glory of friendship and solidarity and "brotherhood" with the "Burmese people" by gracefully donating some bits and pieces of money, to be channeled of course only through those same generals. (so that they can get the credit for distributing the little that they won't steal)

Revolting hypocrisy that any honest people should expose as much as possible and repeat as often as possible.

And so I think the Chinese government will need much more and better advice from Ogilvi about how to win the hearts and minds of all those really bad "Western imperialists" (that is, all those common citizens of Western countries with a democratic and half-caring mindset) who would just like to do something to help those poor hapless Burmese.

Otherwise not a single one of them is going to show up at their forsaken Olympics.

And so it is only going to be "smooth sailing" from here on out if the Chinese government changes its mindset and behavior or if nothing else whatsoever that is of any consequence happens on the world stage between now and the Olympics that would cause them to yet again show their true colors and shoot themselves in the foot.

But you can bet your life (and the Burmese are having to bet theirs) that they won't change their ideology or their practices by one iota.

"it's not over til it's over" in terms of "smooth sailing" from here on out through to the Olympic games."

Indeed, the Chinese may have emerged relatively unscathed from the Tibet incident, but the next opportunity is opening: Burma.

[News]

On Myanmar, France's Bluster Met by Skepticism, China Speaks of Aid

Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 8 -- With the reported number of deaths in Myanmar rising by the hour, in front of the Security Council Thursday morning China's Deputy Permanent Representative Liu said that his government has direct flights to Yangon and has been delivering aid, including tents and cash. He said, however, that the Security Council was not the place to discuss the "natural disaster" in Myanmar. Inner City Press asked him, what about involving the UN's envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari? "Gambari, his is a different process, a political process," Amb. Liu said, that should be kept separate.

South Africa's Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo went further, telling the press to check the web site of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "Yesterday there was a huge" disaster in North Korea, he said. "We never met" in the Security Council "on the tsunami," he said. "What this one?" Panama's Ambassador followed suit, saying "I don' think it's appropriate" to have OCHA's John Holmes brief the Council, as France on May 7 requested. "We have a Secretariat for that," he said, which can "brief the general membership."

Asked Indonesia's Ambassador what aid his country had given. "A million dollars," he said. "And China has given more." India, it is said, has sent two ships of aid to Myanmar. But is this seen on CNN and BBC? Indonesia's Ambassador smiled and went into the Council.

Following French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's vow that his Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert would propose in the UN Security Council intervening in Myanmar under the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, Amb. Ripert did raise the issue, or a first step toward it, in a closed door meeting Wednesday.Several countries, which had opposed discussion Myanmar in the Council after the crackdown on monks and protests in the Fall of 2007, objected to the briefing.China's representative asked Ripert pointedly if the Council had ever discussed France's response to the heat-wave deaths of senior citizens, and that Ripert angrily replied that at least in France, government errors can be discussed, including in the press.

[News]

In fact, other blogger beat us in making the link:

"Don't bet on Burma's disaster to promote political reform" (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2008/05/burma.html)

Oh, well.

....and stop needling me here too!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=564629&in_page_id=1811

thank you Gabriella much further above, -and thank you to myself less further above too- for easily allowing the invaluable comparison below:

Two continents, two systems (democracy and national socialism), two olympics, two ways to show one's nationalism and two kinds of nationalism to begin with. We report, you decide. (and I am NOT trying to be Foxy here so you won't need to needle me any further!)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=564629&in_page_id=1811

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSz0_XJD4s&feature=related

But please DO check them both out quickly, compare and contrast them, and then draw your own conclusions and lessons.