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BEIJING-It won't provoke a diplomatic incident and patriotic mobs are unlikely to take to Beijing's streets, but if Western leaders and the foreign media rain on China's parade it could leave a damaging legacy of resentment."So far it's going very poorly in terms of China's broader relationship with the world community," said John Delury, a China expert at the Asia Society in New York."There's a good chance it's going to lead to some bad blood."There is no doubt that China's domestic media will present the Games as a glorious national achievement.But the Western media has so far been much more grudging, dwelling on Beijing's smog, government efforts to block sensitive websites, the harassment of journalists, the silencing of dissidents and unrest in both Tibet and the Xinjiang region.Western leaders, too, have seized on the opportunity to chide China over its human rights record, most notably U.S. President George W. Bush in a speech delivered on Thursday, just hours before he was due to arrive in Beijing for the opening of the Games.Minxin Pei, a senior associate in the China Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, expects the Chinese government to play all this down because it knows overreaction would itself be a news story and counter-productive. "As for the public, if the government's reaction is measured, the public's reaction will also be restrained," he said, dismissing the prospect of patriotic street protests like those that erupted against Japan in 2005, or over what was perceived as Western support for anti-Chinese rioters in Tibet this year.Delury noted that explosions of nationalist outrage appear to have been manipulated in the past by what he referred to as government-sponsored netizens, and suggested that these would be reined in during the Games to preserve the image of a modern and responsible nation.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
