Beijing's path to 2008 not seen smooth
09/08/2007 |
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Beijing's Olympic countdown extravaganza suggests China is likely to put on a spectacular show next August, but the run-up also illustrated that the next 382 days are unlikely to be trouble free for the hosts.
Beijing awoke to blue skies and sunshine on Thursday, but the images of heavy smog carried by the world's media in the preceding week will be hard to shift.
"My concerns, which I believe are the concerns of everyone, are the climate and the environment and especially the air environment," International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said soon after arriving in Beijing on Monday.
Two hazy grey days later and Rogge was conceding that some endurance events at the Games would have to be postponed if the air quality was not up to scratch.
Rogge said Beijing organisers had promised to close factories and take 1.3 million of the city's 3 million cars off the roads from August 8 to 24 next year.
If the Chinese government was hoping for a wholly positive image dividend from the Games, it will have been disabused by the stream of critical reports from human rights and media freedom pressure groups released over the last week.
There have also been a series of complaints worldwide about the safety of Chinese food and drugs.
Even as the celebrations in Tiananmen Square were winding down, six western activists, who on Tuesday had unveiled a banner at the Great Wall calling for a "Free Tibet", were deported to Hong Kong after two days in detention.
(Source: Reuters)
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