Protecting the nest
Monday, 7th July 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
China has been pulling out all the stops to make next month's Olympics in Beijing – and several other cities – go according to script. Aside from the usual massive building projects associated with the Games, China has also seriously tightened its visa policy, saturated its citizenry with Olympic propaganda and denied foreign media direct access to most Chinese athletes.
It should be no surprise that in terms of security, Beijing is doing all it can to impress upon domestic and international audiences that all is under control. Chinese media reports recently highlighted the deployment of Hongqi-7 surface-to-air missiles (pictured above), which are located near the National Stadium aka the Bird's Nest and will be poised to take out any airborne threats during the Games.
According to a People's Daily report, Western media including AFP and Reuters were given a front-row seat to deployment of said missiles. The report continues:
"The outside world generally believes that although the threat of China's domestic terrorist, extremist, and separatist organizations differ to a degree, we can rest assured that under the protection of such security forces as the People's Liberation Army, the security of the Beijing Olympic Games will be maintained."
Terrorist, extremist and separatist organizations are not the only groups being targeted by the Chinese government. Even cults are being targeted. The image below was taken last week in a residential area in the city of Kunming in China's southwest.
The text above the frolicking fuwas reads: "Oppose cults, welcome the Olympics"
Missile image: clzg.cn
Tags: Bird's Nest, cults, Olympics, People's Liberation Army, security, terrorism, visas
BOCOG Wants You to Know
Tuesday, 17th June 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
A favorite template of the BOCOG online photo gallery: Bureaucrat, surrounded by fascinated guys in uniform, pointing.
Call us party poopers, but we at China Sports Today don't get very excited about most of the news that comes out of BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad). There's just so much interesting actual sports news in China, that praise of Olympic venues and statistics about how huge these games are sort of fade into the background.
But there's actually some mildly interesting stuff there, so here's a roundup of the recent BOCOG chatter:
Banned: A couple of weeks ago, BOCOG published a list of legal guidelines for foreigners coming to the games. At least originally, it was only published in Chinese. But it was translated by plenty of media outlets right away. This sentence from Danwei sums it up well:
"So it's pretty clear: No hookers, pimps, dealers, terrorists, activists, revolutionaries, missionaries, demonstrators, pornographers, gun nuts, maniacs, sufferers of mental diseases, carriers of infectious diseases, poisonous snake collectors, beggars or drunkards."
Planned spontaneity:
Image: People.com's illustrated guide to the cheer.
Ever green: BOCOG says its efforts to improve environmental issues in Beijing have aims beyond the Olympics. Here's hoping.
Neighborhood watch: The catchphrase "People's Olympics, green Olympics, high-tech Olympics," was adopted early on by BOCOG to express three things the committee wants these games to be remembered for. "Safe Olympics" hasn't been officially added to that list, but the words have certainly been used a lot recently. There's this release about Beijingers' responsibility to keep their neighborhoods safe. Then there's this Xinhua story, which looks distinctively like a BOCOG press release, about the breaking news that a Communist Party Central Committee member cares about security at the games.
Operator: The Olympic Call Center will launch July 1 to answer questions in "many languages" about Olympic match schedules, venues, tickets and cultural activities.
Relay reroute: The torch relay route has changed. Instead of going through Tibet and Qinghai as scheduled, it is headed to Xinjiang Autonomous Region this week. BOCOG has released news about the Xinjiang leg, but has not mentioned the Tibet/Qinghai leg, nor addressed whether the torch will pass through the region at a later date.
UPDATE: The torch will make an abbreviated one-day stop in Lhasa Saturday June 21.
Image: BOCOG
Tags: BOCOG, environment, security, torch relay