By SPIEGEL Staff
The Olympic torch's so-called "journey of harmony" around the world (which will likely include a procession through Lhasa after a trip to the summit of Mt. Everest) could very well turn into a source of unending embarrassment for the Chinese. There will be anti-Beijing and pro-Tibet protests at practically every station along the way, with the probable exception of the North Korean capital Pyongyang.
In Istanbul last Thursday, an unknown demonstrator managed to get within five meters (about 16 feet) of the torch before the police stopped him. The torchbearer managed to dodge the obstacle, but not before his escort of six muscular Chinese men wearing blue Olympic track suits, sunglasses and baseball caps leapt into combat position. Beijing, which has chosen not to entrust the protection of the flame to the security forces of the respective countries, has deployed an entourage of its own guardians of the Olympic torch.
In London on Sunday and Paris on Monday, the scenes were even worse, with the flame actually being extinguished in the French capital and the last leg of the parade being cancelled. Demonstrations turned violent and dozens were arrested in both cities. On Tuesday, China once again showed an absolutist interpretation of the protests, saying in a foreign ministry statement: "We express our strong condemnation of the deliberate disruption off the Olympic torch relay by 'Tibetan independence' separatist forces."
The flame is set to arrive in San Francisco on Tuesday, and protesters have already geared up for a rousing welcome. Tibetan activists scaled the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday to unfurl banners in support of Tibet.
No Torch for Chinatown
As was the case in Bangkok, many athletes and celebrities are refusing to carry the torch through their respective cities. Mayors are changing the already published relay route and releasing the new routes at the last minute. In Indonesia, the flame will practically be smuggled through the capital Jakarta with almost no public participation. Because so many of its residents are of Chinese origin, San Francisco was chosen as the Olympic flame's only station in the United States. But now the torch will probably not even be carried through the streets of the city's world-famous Chinatown. For days, protestors have been gathering at noon in front of City Hall, chanting: "Reject China's bloody torch."
The path of the torch.
The flame will now be carried only about three kilometers (less than two miles) through the Indian capital New Delhi, from the heavily guarded gate of the presidential palace to the city's famed India Gate. And instead of the 105 athletes, politicians and Bollywood stars originally scheduled to attend, no more than 10 to 15 torchbearers will pass on the flame. India's biggest football star, Bhaichung Bhutia, a Buddhist from the eastern Indian state of Sikkim, has declined to participate. "What is happening in Tibet is not right," he says. "I will not carry the torch."
Western PR professionals have already developed a name for China's so-called journey of harmony, which is turning out to be such a dramatic embarrassment for Beijing. They have dubbed the Olympic Torch the "Flame of Shame." Still, all calls for boycotts have so far been half-hearted and have been met with fears of offending the growing world power, eagerness to protect business investments and a disinclination to disappoint Olympic athletes. But the athletic event has already lost its allure -- the hope that the cosmopolitan celebration would finally establish China as a full-fledged member of the modern world has evaporated.
The Promise of the Games
It was a whole different story at the beginning of the new millennium. In the summer of 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) came together at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater to choose its finalist, and the choice was clear. It took only two rounds of voting for Beijing to emerge as the winner -- the other contenders, Toronto, Paris, Osaka and Istanbul, didn't stand a chance. China was the perfect location for the IOC, which takes both the idea of international understanding and the interests of sponsors into account when making its decisions.
By the time the IOC made its decision, the country had whipped itself into shape as an economic giant, producing goods for the West and offering the unparalleled promise of 1.3 billion potential consumers. Another reason that the vote was so clear was that Beijing had lost out to Sydney eight years earlier.
Deng Xiaoping, the great promoter of a new China, came up with the idea of bringing the games to his country. In 1990, one year after the student revolts and the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Asian Games were held in Beijing, which hosted 6,122 athletes from 37 countries. It was the first major international sporting event in Chinese history and when he toured the athletic facilities, Deng said that they were so good that it would be a shame not to host the Olympic Games there in the near future.
Juan Antonio Samaranch, then president of the IOC and already an old man at the time, was an especially influential supporter of Deng's plan. A few months before the IOC's 1993 decision on the 2000 Summer Olympics, Samaranch and the mayor of Beijing rode around Tiananmen Square a few times on bicycles -- in full view of television cameras. China even released regime critics to support the bid, but reservations were still too great. Beijing lost out to Sydney by just two votes, while Samaranch remained a supporter of the Chinese cause, even saying that "we would be very pleased" if China were to apply once again.
New China
The China that competed with Moscow eight years later was a different country. No dissidents were released this time. And this time the Chinese application was less of a petition to be re-accepted into the international community than a demand by a country brimming with self-confidence -- a new China that even planned to cover the site of the 1989 massacre with sand for the event's laid-back beach volleyball competitions. China's representative to the IOC, He Zhenlian, promised that the whole world would benefit if the games were awarded to Beijing.
Many arguments in the current boycott debate were already hashed out back then. An overwhelming majority of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the US House of Representatives was opposed to Beijing being awarded the games, arguing that the number of human rights violations in China was "abhorrent." The European Parliament expressed similar sentiments. Thomas Bach, the current president of the German Olympic Sport Federation and the IOC vice-president at the time, said: "There are two schools of thought. The one says that the games should not be awarded to a country as long as it does not satisfy a certain standard of human rights. The old school says that the games help open up the country."
Bach and Samaranch believed the Chinese because they wanted to believe them. Liu Jingmin was the deputy mayor of Beijing at the time and acted as spokesman of sorts for the city's application committee. Today he is the vice-president of the Beijing Organizing Committee. The promises he made in the spring of 2001 now verge on the grotesque. "If Beijing is allowed to host the games," he said, "it will help the development of human rights." Liu suggested that China could become a liberal country and even spoke of "complete freedom" for reporters.
'Mistakes of the Past'
Back when the decision to award the games to Beijing seemed so perfect, international advocates dreamed of a wonderful party, at which the Chinese would take center stage as open, tolerant and affable global citizens who would be in perfect control of the organization of a gigantic athletic festival -- and that all of this would take place in a cleaned-up city with extravagant architecture. Beijing's "peaceful ascent" would be witnessed by 30,000 journalists and half a million visitors from overseas.
Even leading US sinologists such as Richard Baum believed the global attention, "together with Beijing's strong motivation to present the best possible games to the outside world, will prevent China's leaders from repeating the major political mistakes of the past."
The Chinese Communist Party, for its part, hoped to score points with many skeptical citizens and prove that it, and it alone, would be capable of mastering such an organizational coup and help the Chinese regain their pride and self-confidence. Their reasoning was that anyone who became enthusiastic about the games could not help but love the Communist Party as well.
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