Great censorship wall of China

Among the proud sponsors of China’s — I mean, Beijing’s — Genocide Olympics in August are Coca Cola, Visa, General Electric, Volkswagen and Samsung. They hope to increase their profits by celebrating this nation whose Beijing Organizing Committee has told the approximately 500,000 visitors expected for the games what NOT to bring with them into the not-exactly-welcoming Republic of China.
Forbidden is “anything detrimental to China’s politics, economy, culture or moral standards — including printed material (like this column), film negatives, photos, records, movies, tape recordings, videotapes, optical discs and other items.”
Also banned are political or religious banners; and the only permitted demonstrations, rallies or marches must have prior approval from authorities in this ceaselessly suspicious communist dictatorship.
Functioning as a mirror image of China’s Great Censorship Wall is the International Olympic Committee (IOC), an official of which has enthusiastically declared the internationally televised games will be “a force for good” inside China, burnishing the patriotic pride of its people. The OIC has warned all the athletes not to offend the host.
Some of China’s people, however, may wind up in Chinese gulags after the Olympics if visiting journalists do not pay close attention to the advice given them by Kathleen McLaughlin, who reports on China for the Bureau of National Affairs and also writes for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Christian Science Monitor.
“Read up,” she counsels, “on which topics … the Chinese government considers most sensitive.” And if journalists do tread onto that sensitivity minefield in the stories they send home, they should be “mindful of placing Chinese citizens (translators, assistants …) in any danger.”
But how will NBC — which paid around $900 million for the high privilege of American rights to broadcast China’s glorification of itself through the Olympics — protect any of its Chinese helpers after the medals are awarded? Will NBC and its sister, MSNBC, send reporters to document the punishments given to the Chinese citizens who provided the skills to ensure the smooth functioning of TV coverage and its expensive advertisements?
Those of you watching at home are, of course, free to raise a glass to salute a form of courage, beyond athletic daring, by honoring imprisoned Yang Chunlin, who was campaigning for compensation for peasant farmers whose land has been confiscated by the Chinese government. Increasing his present 3-1/2 year sentence in March was his choice of a slogan for his campaign: “We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics.”
You also might want to shed a tear for NBC, which — the June 4 New York Post reported — is “anywhere from $150 million to $300 million shy of its sales target.”
But the world will be watching, and I hope to see whether French athletes will succeed in their plan to wear — despite China and the International Olympics Committee — a badge with just the slogan “For a Better World.” That could, however, be regarded as a thought crime by the host and the by now thoroughly disgraced International Olympics Committee.
History books, not in China, will still call this “The Genocide Olympics” as China’s business partner, Sudan, keeps staining it with the mark of Darfur — where arms are supplied by China.
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.