The other side of the Beijing Olympics

It is heartening to see Britain doing so well at the Olympics but it is worth remembering that for all the excitement of the games, China has not abided by the commitments it made to allow a modicum of freedom of expression during the games. Take this story highlighted by Bill Keller: 

The pre-Olympics promises that attention would be paid to international norms of behavior went unredeemed. The New York Times’s Andrew Jacobs followed one citizen who decided to take up the government’s Olympic offer of designated protest zones for aggrieved parties who had filed the proper paperwork. Zhang Wei applied for the requisite license and was promptly arrested for “disturbing social order.”  Hosting the Olympics probably has acted as a check on China’s actions on the world stage; the Chinese were concerned about sparking a boycott of the games. But it has not brought about  the internal changes that many claimed it would.