winning press freedom conference

Jean-Philippe Beja, Senior Fellow of the International Relations Studies Center, gave the concluding speech at the Paris conference by reminding us all how very crucial the success of the Olympic Games will be for the Beijing regime.

At stake here are decades of planning and economic development at neck-breaking speed with one goal in mind: fulfilling a centuries-old dream of turning China into a rich nation.

But he also warned us that the backlash triggered by the international PR nightmare the Games organizers are going through might easily translate into extreme Chinese nationalism.

Concluding Speech of the "Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom" Paris Conference
By Jean-Philippe Beja

We have had extensive coverage here about what journalists will be up against there. We have learned about how the censorship and propaganda department works, down to the lowest administrative echelons.

We have learned how the Internet is controlled, and how the Chinese leadership is proactive in controlling opinion. The flow of information toward China is also used. It’s proactive on foreign and Western web sites—an important aspect that few speak of.

Dick Winfield asks why China controls the press. I don’t agree with what he said. The situation is not static. Although censorship is quite impressive, we also noted that whether it’s on the Internet or elsewhere, journalists try to push the envelope.

It is true that people are arrested, but information does circulate on the Internet. What’s interesting is that concessions are made. The freedom has been restricted since 2001, the authorities can’t completely shut off the communication.

The public is pushing for more space to communicate freely. It’s a cat and mouse situation. It may change in nature—change is possible in China. You as journalists need to communicate the multi-faceted aspects of the situation.

Why are the Olympic Games so important?

We have to go back far, the dream of a rich country. Every since the English gunships arrived in China, the Chinese have long for a rich country. This objective unifies the leaders and the intelligencia there.

The party is saying now that we had 30 years of peace when we can develop. They feared that if they followed the democratic lead of the Soviet Union, it, too, would break up.

Most politicians said they need to put contradictions aside and work to make it a powerful country after 1992. This development also had various consequences, causing huge variances of living standards.

They improved freedom of expression as long as it wasn’t in public. Workers, peasants, laid-off workers and migrant workers were out of the place and the intellectuals didn’t care about the situation.

So we had on one hand the intelligencia, the elite supporting the party, and the workers not supporting it. After 2003, they decided that they wanted to prevent society to organize for themselves, trying to use the law.

Of course, the human rights were not guaranteed by any independent judiciary, but you could use this discourse to defend yourself. What had been conceived by the authorities as a way to prevent social discontent to manifest itself turned out to be the opposite.

People tried to give a voice to the voiceless, to the peasants, farmers and workers. What happened, of course, is that the authorities have cracked down on lawyers and human rights defenders. The nationalism discourse is coming from this.

The good image on the international scene is very much a part of the scene. It will give China back its place on the international scene. This signifies the new rise of China on the international scene.

The torch problems caused a contradiction. They couldn’t back out and make concessions. That would have looked like a show of weakness. They reinforced domestic solidarity, which can be strong in the middle classes.

The cost was the real image in the international scene. The authorities said we must transform our anger into strength. We must develop our country to have a good Olympics Games.

The risk of extreme nationalism is that you’re selling the country to multi-national companies. This will risk the humiliation of their nation, some Chinese say.

Jean-Philippe Beja is Senior Fellow of the International Relations Studies Center (CERI).