Business in China

Source Xin Hua
20/04/2008

Tens of hundreds of overseas Chinese rallied Saturday in Paris, London, Berlin, Los Angeles and other cities to support Chinese government, and oppose biased Western media reportage of the Beijing Olympic torch relay as well as their distorted coverage of the recent riot in China's Tibet, which was instigated by the 14th Dalai Lama segments.


Chinese protest against biased Tibet .

Meanwhile, protests against "Tibet independence" continued in several Chinese cities on Sunday. Demonstrators were seen in the north western city Xi'an, the north eastern city Harbin and eastern city of Jinan, following Saturday's demonstrations in Beijing, Xi'an, Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, and Kunming, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Los Angeles, more than 5,000 people gathered outside the Hollywood office of TV broadcaster CNN, to protest against one of the channel's commentators, Jack Cafferty, who described Chinese people as a "bunch of goons and thugs", and China-made goods as "junk".
A statement issued by CNN on Tuesday paid lip service to address the rallying anger of Chinese all over the world over the insulting words of Cafferty, who many in China and other countries said is a racist.
In Paris, more than 4,000 Chinese gathered on Saturday in the Place de la Republique wearing T-shirts daubed with the slogan "One China, One family".
Many protestors, who came from across France and Europe, unfurled a banner showing wheelchair Chinese athlete Jin Jing who was assaulted by Tibetan extremists during the torch relay in Paris. Emotions ran high as many chanted "Go Beijing".
"We're demonstrating against the disinformation in the French and western media, to promote the Olympic Games and to construct a bridge between the French and Chinese people -- and not a wall as the media do," said one of the rally's spokesmen, Thierry Liu.
Some French also joined the Paris rally. A man surnamed Joseph, 60, said he had travelled often to China and that he was "defending the right to the truth," according to AFP.
More than 1,000 people, mainly students, also gathered outside the BBC office in Manchester, northwestern England, while around 500 staged a demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament in London, police said.
"I was in London ... during the torch relay on April 6 and we saw thousands of students coming from all over the UK just to support the torch relay and were really excited about that," London protestor Becky Qin said.
"But when I went back to Cambridge and saw the recorded version of BBC News, we were disappointed to see nothing about the supporting groups at all."
"It was as if the torch was just struggling its way through London and it was all about how people were so resentful about it," she said, adding that the broadcaster had provided "blurry numbers" about how many innocent people died at the hands of Tibetan rioters on March 14.
Protests against "Tibet independence" continued in several Chinese cities on Sunday.
Protestors gathered in front of outlets of the French supermarket chain Carrefour, chanting "Oppose Tibet independence", and "Oppose CNN's anti-China statements" on Sunday morning.
Chinese police were monitoring the demonstrations, which had no effect on the supermarkets' normal operations, Xinhua said.

More than 1,000 students and citizens in front of the Carrefour in Xi'an held banners, saying "Strongly oppose CNN's anti-China statements" and "Condemn Tibet secessionist in France tearing up the Five-Star Red Flag". They chanted "Support the Olympics", "Go China" and "Condemn CNN" through loudspeakers.
Carrefour has been accused by Chinese Internet users of supporting the Dalai Lama group, which Carrefour China denied in a statement released on Wednesday.
"Today's activity is simply an awareness-raising activity, aimed at finding a way out for the patriotic emotions of our students," said Wu Sheng, Xi'an resident and one of the organizers.
"We do not support a boycott of French companies because the economy is globalizing. We choose Carrefour front doors only because we draw more attention there," Wu said.

Et il est vrai qu'une fois les manifestations terminées, les clients sont revenus dans les magasins Carrefour.

The idea of Olympic boycott as political protest goes back at least to 1956.
Le "Boycott" comme outil politique remonte à 1956.

Article en Anglais et en Français.

Several European countries refused to go to Melbourne because the Soviet Union had crushed the Hungarian uprising, while some Middle East nations stayed away because of a fight over control of the Suez Canal.
All these years later, it's not clear how keeping athletes out of a track meet in Australia was supposed to affect postcolonial politics in Egypt. But by the 1970s and 1980s, boycotts were as much a part of the Olympics as spandex is today. The U.S. boycotted the Moscow Olympics. The Soviets boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles. African nations boycotted the Montreal Games because New Zealand refused to boycott South African rugby. And rugby's not even an Olympic sport.
Boycott fever lifted with the end of the cold war. The Olympics turned to simpler concerns like doping and bribery. But with China's recent crackdown on dissenters and Tibetan nationalists, the first murmurs were heard of a possible boycott of this summer's Beijing Games.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he could not "close the door" to the possibility that he might skip part of the Beijing Olympics. Hollywood figures Steven Spielberg, Richard Gere and Mia Farrow have invoked the idea of a boycott for reasons ranging from Tibet to Darfur. Meanwhile, protesters are disrupting the winding path of the Olympic torch from Greece to the opening ceremonies.
Perhaps the temptation to declaim on such a grand stage is too much to resist. And because the Olympics have become a sort of debutante ball for nations entering the global élite, governments must ask whether mere attendance confers a stamp of approval on the host.

The boycott logic is easy enough to follow. But boycotts are empty gestures. Governments boycott, athletes suffer, and the only thing that changes is that the credibility of the Olympics as a festival of goodwill suffers another dent. Jesse Owens had the right idea. In 1936 he led the U.S. team at Hitler's Berlin Olympics--a black man in the land of Aryan supremacy. His four gold medals proved that quiet excellence can be a most eloquent statement.
_____________________________________________________________________________


Plusieurs pays européens ont refusé d'aller à Melbourne parce que l'Union Soviétique avait écrasé le soulèvement hongrois, pendant que quelques nations de l'europe de l'est ne s'y sont pas rendues sur le sujet du contrôle du Canal de Suez.
Après plusieurs années, ce n'est pas sain de penser que d'exclure des athlètes d'une rencontre d'athlétisme en Australie, ait eu une influence sur la politique postcolonial en Egypte. Mais durant les années 1970 et 1980, les boycottages étaient comme beaucoup une partie des Jeux Olympiques. Les Etats-Unis ont boycotté les Jeux Olympiques de Moscou. Les Soviets ont boycotté les Jeux Olympiques à Los Angeles. Les nations africaines ont boycotté les jeux de Montréal parce que la Nouvelle Zélande a refusé de boycotter l'équipe de rugby de l'Afrique du Sud. Et le rugby n'est même pas un sport Olympique.
La fièvre du boycottage a été amplifiée avec la fin de la guerre froide. Les Jeux Olympiques tournés aux inquiétudes plus simples politiquement mais tout aussi importante, comme la drogue ou la corruption. Mais avec la répression récente de Chine sur les dissidents et les nationalistes du Tibet, les premiers murmures ont été entendus comme un boycottage possible des Jeux de Beijing de cet été.
Le Président Nicolas Sarkozy a dit qu'il ne pourrait pas fermer la porte " à la possibilité qu'il puisse envisager un message lors des Jeux Olympiques de Beijing". Le départ de Steven Spielberg, Richard Gere et Mia Farrow ont invoqué l'idée d'un boycottage afin de s'aligner sur les actions au Tibet mais aussi au Darfur. Pendant ce temps, les contestataires interrompent le transfert du flambeau olympique, entre sportifs, et c'est désolant pour eux.
Et parce que les Jeux Olympiques sont devenues une sorte d'entrée de bal pour les débutantes ( "nations"), qui se voient ainsi entrées dans la cours des "grands", les gouvernements doivent se poser la question si réellement l'olympisme et ses valeurs représentent autre chose que leurs ambitions politiques.

Boycotter une logique facile a suivre. Mais les boycottages sont des gestes vides.
Les Governements boycottent, et les athlètes souffrent; la seule incidence par ces positions sont la crédibilité des Jeux Olympiques comme un festival de bonne volonté sportive. - Jesse Owens avait la bonne idée. En 1936 il a mené l'équipe Américaine aux Jeux Olympiques de Berlin de Hitler--un homme noir dans la terre de suprématie aryenne. Ses quatre médailles d'or ont prouvées que cette excellence tranquille peut être une déclaration plus éloquente.