China takes steps to deter pre-Olympic protests
By Tim Johnson, McClatchy NewspapersThu Apr 24, 3:52 PM ET
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/888435.html
BEIJING =97 Nervous that troublemakers may slip across the border
before
the Olympic Games, China is making it harder for foreigners to obtain
entry visas and halting public gatherings where embarrassing protests
over Tibet might take place.
Authorities suspended a May 1-4 rock festival that's the biggest
annual outdoor music event in China , saying the event could be
dangerous, an organizer said Thursday.
Other commercial events also have been canceled in recent weeks,
including a Celine Dion concert in Beijing and a pillow fight aimed
at
drawing shoppers to a mall.
Chinese authorities are in no mood for such parties. Unrest in
Tibetan
regions last month marked the biggest wave of ethnic disturbances in
nearly two decades, sparking protests worldwide as the Olympic torch
made its way around the globe this month.
On Thursday, the torch passed through Canberra, Australia , where
police made seven arrests, and then it headed to Nagano, Japan ,
under
heavy security.
Many Chinese watched angrily as protests bedeviled the torch relay
earlier this month in England and France , seeing them as an attempt
to humiliate China . With government approval, some Chinese have
launched protests outside Chinese branches of French retailer
Carrefour , voicing often-irate anti-Western sentiments.
Tightened entry rules into China began a week or so ago and are to
last through the Aug. 8-24 Summer Games . The new visa requirements
have distressed foreign business owners and executives with
operations
on the mainland.
Chinese consulates abroad commonly granted multiple-entry visas but
now are limiting most applicants to single- or double-entry visas,
and
only if travelers have air tickets and hotel bookings in hand.
"Business people need stability to operate, and the Hong Kong
business
community has been thrown into great turmoil as a result of the new
and largely misunderstood visa policies," said Richard R. Vuylsteke ,
president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong , in a
letter to a Chinese Foreign Ministry official. The letter was posted
on the chamber's Web site.
A scholar in Hong Kong said the visa restrictions and the sudden
cancellations of public events reveal China's nervousness in the
run-up to the Olympic Games.
"The whole idea is, 'Make sure that nothing goes wrong.' This is a
paramount consideration, and they are willing to pay the price," said
Joseph Cheng , a political scientist at City University of Hong
Kong .
The founder and organizer of the Midi Festival, the suspended four-
day
rock event, said he'd invited 30 bands from the United States ,
Europe
and Australia to perform along with 100 Chinese bands on six
different
stages at the Beijing festival.
"I think it's good for the Olympics and for China , but the
government
doesn't think so," said Zhang Fan , the organizer. "They think it's
dangerous."
He said officials were particularly unhappy that Bjork, the Icelandic
singer, shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of a concert in Shanghai
on
March 2 .
Asked the reasons for the Midi cancellation, Zhang said: "First, it's
Bjork. Second, it's Tibet, and third, it's the torch. Fourth, it's
that a lot of Chinese people are angry."
The Foreign Ministry , meanwhile, declared that authorities would
guarantee "the physical safety and legal rights" of foreigners coming
to China , and it rejected re****ts that a throng of protesters had
tried to harm an American volunteer teacher in Hunan province.
James Galvin , a 22-year-old Boston College graduate, was taunted
outside a Carrefour market in Zhuzhou Sunday night. He later sent an
email to an English-language Web site in Shanghai saying that while
chanting protesters had surrounded his taxi, they didn't break any
windows or harm him.
"I was not in fact attacked by a mob," Galvin told the
Shanghaiist.com
Web site. He couldn't be reached directly.
Steven Parker , the China field director for WorldTeach, a Cambridge,
Mass. -based program that sends volunteers around the world, warned
volunteers in a letter Monday to stay away from protests, saying a
mob
had tried to smash the windows of Galvin's taxi and tip it over,
making him feel "extremely unsafe."
A McClatchy story re****ted Parker's initial version. The Foreign
Ministry sent a fax to the Beijing bureau saying his version
"misrepresented" what Galvin later clarified had occurred.
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