Chinese nationals: Olympics news unfair

Too much focus on politics, not athletics, they say

 by Allison Denny
 published on Monday, April 14, 2008

Bryan Patrick / Sacramento Bee via MCT

CRY FREEDOM: Jack Kornfield, right, leads demonstrators across the Golden Gate Bridge in support of a free Burma, also known as Myanmar, before the arrival of the Olympic Torch on April 9.

With the 2008 Olympic Games just months away and controversy surrounding host country China continuing to mount, some Chinese citizens living in the United States say the media has painted an unfair picture of their home country.

Protestors arguing for a free Tibet, publicizing human rights violations in China and China's involvement, or lack thereof, in Darfur have put the Chinese government on the defense.

The Olympic Torch is partway through an 85,000-mile, 20-nation journey — the longest in Olympic history, according to the Associated Press.

Instead of building excitement for the games, some of the cities where the torch has traveled — like London, Paris and San Francisco — have been barraged with protestors.

Xu Wu, a public relations professor at ASU, said the media coverage reflects a distorted public view of the state of China today.

For the most part, the Beijing native said, information provided by the Chinese government is harder to obtain than information coming from interest groups with an agenda to push, like one of the major groups protesting the Olympic Games and China's involvement: Students for a Free Tibet.

A lack of knowledge about China's history, coupled with the difficulty of obtaining information, Wu said, leads to news being reported inaccurately and out of context.
"Because of this misinterpretation and the distortion, you can see the [negative] reaction across the world," he said.

While there are issues to be discussed between China and Tibet, Wu said, the countdown to the Olympics isn't the time for it.

"I don't think the current situation will benefit anybody, especially the athletes," he said. "The Chinese people want to become the best hosts ever, but this small, motivated group of people will tarnish the whole international event."

Supply chain management senior Alicia Chen was living in Beijing when the city was given the Olympic nod in 2001.

Across the world, she said, the focus is not on the upcoming games, but politics.

"The Olympic Games is not about the government," Chen said. "It's about the people, the athletes."

In the U.S. and other countries, Chen added, many Chinese people are coming out in masses to support the games and give people information not being reported by the mainstream media.

"But they are being ignored by the Western media," she said.

Supply chain management and finance senior Wenting Yue, who moved to the U.S. from China three and a half years ago, said the Olympic Games are about recognizing the differences among nations, cultures and ideologies and celebrating the commonality that brings those nations together.

"[The] Olympics is supposed to be a sports event promoting the unity of the world and sportsmanship," she said.

The media, though, is sending a clear message of negativity on the event and even the Chinese people, she said.

Chinese people will be upset if the Olympic Games and the nation's people themselves continue to be cast in a negative light across the nation, Yue said.

"It kind of creates a tension between different people around the world," she said. "That's not something we would want to see with the Olympics coming up."

Reach the reporter at: allison.denny@asu.edu.