The Olympic Torch and Tibetan protestors

It seems as though every Olympic games has its troubles. The '96 games in Atlanta had traffic problems, allegations of bribery, and a terrorist incident that killed 11 people¹. The '00 games in Sydney seemed "mired in troubles" less than five months out². The '04 games barely finished their venues, and was a financial disaster for Athens³. So it should come as little surprise that Beijing is having troubles of its own in the months leading up to its opening ceremonies.

As you may well know, the Olympic torch relay has had considerable controversy surrounding it. The torch (pictured right), as I noted earlier, is going all over the world, and is currently going between some of the major European capitals, including London and Paris. Each of its stops has sparked protest from groups opposed to China's takeover of Tibet in 1959. In Paris, the torch was extinguished during the turmoil of protesters⁴.

The protests have not been limited to cities where the torch is. In San Francisco on April 7, climbers got onto the Golden Gate Bridge and put up signs with slogans along the lines of, "Free Tibet 08". Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced that she wanted President Bush to impose a "partial boycott" of the Olympics by not participating in the Opening Ceremony because of China's failure to deal with both Tibet and the Sudanese situation in Darfur⁵.

Chinese embassies from places like Budapest, Vilnius, Rome, and Reykjavik have been bombarded with protesters, symbolizing international pressure on China to do something regarding Tibet. In The Hague, protesters stormed the consulate, replacing the Chinese flag with a Tibetan flag (pictured below: this flag is illegal in China)⁶.

The problems the Chinese have had with their torch relay from Greece to the U.K. to France may cause significant changes in the route. For example, the section of the route scheduled to go to Tibet may be canceled or altered⁷.

For China, this is an international PR disaster. The torch relay was, in a sense, China's big "homecoming," with its magnificence. The Chinese have been planning everything down to a tee to make sure that everything ran flawlessly. 123 days before the opening ceremonies, the torch relay has been in every sense a nightmare. Mobs, protesters, Tibetan flags: the magnificence of China's torch relay is, in a poetic sense, going up in flames.

The only people in the world unaware of the disaster that is slowing unfolding toward Beijing are, unsurprisingly, the Chinese themselves. Extensive censorship of news coming into the country (and news coming out of Tibet) has limited the government's image in its own people⁸.

Nonetheless, China must be worried right now about what's going to happen. After all, if protesters are doing this to torchbearers in their own countries, what could happen in Beijing. With on the order of two million people headed to Beijing in August, how many of them could be protesters, and of those, who might become violent, resorting to terrorism? Big name events (especially where the Chinese may be favored and the opening and closing ceremonies) could be especially lucrative terrorist attacks. The question now is what China will plan on doing to protect its tourists (and thus, its image--the all important factor of the 2008 games)? It remains to be seen how China will work out its Olympic troubles.

References
1. Wikipedia: 1996 Summer Olympics
2. IOC plays down troubles as Sydney Olympics approach
3. Wikipedia: 2004 Summer Olympics
4. Olympic Torch Run in Paris Halted as Protests Spread
5. Clinton calls for partial boycott; torch protesters scale Golden Gate Bridge
6. Wikipedia: 2008 Tibetan Unrest
7. Olympic Officials May Reconsider Torch Relay
8. Chinese Media in Spin of Indignation