Olympics Make China More Free
China has lifted a series of restrictions on the media in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. As part of its bid the Chinese government promised the International Olympic Committee that it would allow free reporting before and during the Games. The reporting restrictions have been suspended for the period 1 January 2007 to 17 October 2008.
Currently reporters are not allowed to travel freely and are not allowed to interview people without official permission. Those rules are now gone. The biggest concern is how the rules are enforced, given China’s secretive official culture. Christian Science Monitor reports
The strength of that culture is clearly evident in an official police language-training manual obtained by the Monitor. It is being used to teach Beijing policemen the English phrases they might need when dealing with Olympic visitors.
Published by China’s Public Security Bureau University and the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, “Olympic Security English” contains a practice dialog entitled, “How to Stop Illegal News Coverage”.
The dialog teaches policemen the English phrases they would need to detain a foreign reporter found talking to a Chinese citizen about Falun Gong, an outlawed spiritual movement.
Beijing city patrolmen are given the manual as part of a home study program according to one city police officer who asked not to be identified. They are taught how to say, “You’re a sports reporter. You should only cover the Games,” and to tell the reporter that Falun Gong is “beyond the permit” and “beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal.”
How effective these changes are remains to be seen but let’s hope that under the world’s gaze Chinese society is prized a little more open and that with the genie out of the bottle that openness lasts long after the closing ceremony.
