Recently in Beijing 2008 Category

By Edward Wong | The New York Times

December 06, 2011

The statement posted online along with a photograph of central Beijing muffled in a miasma of brown haze did not mince words: "The end of the world is imminent."

The ceaseless churning of factories and automobile engines in and around Beijing has led to this: hundreds of flights canceled since Sunday because of smog, stores sold out of face masks, and many Chinese complaining on the Internet that officials are failing to level with them about air quality or make any improvements to the environment.

Chronic pollution in Beijing, temporarily scrubbed clean for the 2008 Summer Olympics, has made people angry for a long time, but the disruptions it causes to daily life are now raising questions about the economic cost, and the government's ability to ensure the safety of the population.

"As a Chinese citizen, we have been kept in the dark on this issue for too long," said Yu Ping, the father of a 7-year-old boy, who has started a public campaign to demand that officials report more accurately about Beijing's air quality. "The government is just so bureaucratic that they don't seem to care whether we common people live or die. And it's up to us, the common people, to prod them and to put pressure on them so that they can reflect on their actions and realize that they really just have to do something."

When the frustration of parents boils over, Communist Party leaders start worrying about their legitimacy in the eyes of the people. That was the case in 2008 when parents vented anger over deadly school collapses in the Sichuan earthquake and over adulterated milk.

The motionless cloud of pollution that has smothered the capital and its surroundings in recent days has frayed tempers. Long stretches of highway have been shut down because of low visibility, hobbling transportation of people and goods. Workers at Capital International Airport have faced crowds of irate travelers whose flights have been grounded. From Sunday to 11 a.m. Tuesday, more than 700 outbound and inbound flights were canceled, one airport official said. A tour guide, Wang Lanhuizi, 23, clutched dozens of passports from a stranded group. "I'm really worried, but there's nothing we can do," she said.

An announcement at the airport made no mention of pollution, attributing the cancellations and delays to "the weather condition." That has long been the government line: the haze is fog, not fumes. But increasingly, Chinese know better. People like Mr. Yu, a newspaper editor, are lobbying officials to stop whitewashing their air quality reports.

Many people now follow a Twitter feed from the United States Embassy that gives hourly updates on air quality; gauges on top of the embassy in central Beijing measure, among other things, the amount of fine airborne particles, which are extremely damaging to the lungs. Since Sunday, the air has been rated "very unhealthy" or "hazardous," meaning that people should avoid any outdoor activity; on Sunday, the particulate measurement exceeded the scale's maximum of 500, a reading that the embassy once called "crazy bad" on its @BeijingAir Twitter feed.

The fine particles, called PM 2.5 because they are 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller, make up much of the pollution in the city, but they are not included in the air quality ratings issued by the Chinese government. The published ratings take into account only a larger class of particles (up to 10 microns in diameter) called PM 10. As a result, Beijing officials have announced good or excellent air quality nearly 80 percent of the time over the last two years, while the embassy's assessment says the air was unhealthy more than 80 percent of the time, according to an analysis by Steven Q. Andrews, an American environmental consultant, that was published Monday on the Web site China Dialogue.

Experts say the filthy air shortens lives in the capital. One authoritative study "indicates that if Beijing's fine particulate concentration even reached the polluted levels of Los Angeles, life expectancy may increase by over five years," Mr. Andrews wrote.

The air readings from the embassy mysteriously stopped on Tuesday afternoon. "We're checking on it," the embassy spokesman, Richard L. Buangan, said on Twitter. (Although Twitter is blocked in China, the embassy's air quality ratings are reposted by many Chinese on unblocked sites.)

In July 2009, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Wang Shu'ai, told American diplomats to halt the embassy's air quality Twitter feed, saying that the data "is not only confusing but also insulting," according to a State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks. The embassy's data, Mr. Wang said, could lead to "social consequences."

Chinese officials recently acknowledged that Beijing and other cities have the equipment to measure PM 2.5, the smaller particles, but do not reflect that data in their air quality ratings.

Prominent Beijing residents have called for changes. One is Pan Shiyi, a real estate magnate who asked his seven million microblog followers last month to vote on whether the authorities should use a stricter standard to assess air quality. Officials have not been helped by news reports that revealed that a Chinese manufacturer, the Broad Group, advertises that more than 200 of its pricey air purifiers are in the offices and homes of China's top leaders.

Ma Jun, an environmental advocate, said officials made some progress this year by committing to ensuring that cities report PM 2.5 data starting in 2016. But that is too far away, he said.

Mr. Yu, the editor, is pushing for immediate disclosure of the data. His campaign has attracted attention online this week as Beijing residents cough and squint in the haze. Mr. Yu said he filed an application to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau last month to have the bureau release PM 2.5 data, and was turned down; he posted the bureau's answer on his microblog. He said he was considering suing the bureau or asking the Ministry of Environmental Protection for a review. "With the government not being totally open about this issue," he said, "many people don't realize how bad the situation is."

On Tuesday, the English-language China Daily published an article under the headline "Exposure to Smog Is Severe Hazard." It said the lung cancer rate in Beijing had increased by 60 percent in the last decade even though the smoking rate did not change.       

By Chris Chase | for (UNCENSORED) Yahoo! Sports
April 28, 2010

China was stripped of a team all-around bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Wednesday because it fielded an underage gymnast. Dong Fangxiao was discovered to be 14 at the time of those Games, two years younger than the minimum age requirement.

The medal will be given to the United States team which finished fourth in Sydney. The IOC has asked for China to return the medals "as soon as possible" so they can be reallocated to the U.S. team. 

The action comes 20 months after China was accused of doctoring the ages of at least two of its gymnasts at the Beijing Games. Those allegations became a focal point of the 2008 Games but were quickly hushed up by the IOC after it cleared China following a sham investigation which basically consisted of the Olympic governing body asking China if they were really, really sure that the gymnasts were of age. When China said "yes" and produced passports and ID cards, the IOC dropped the matter, seemingly content to let the controversy pass and not risk offending its Olympic hosts.

Forget the fact that media reports and security experts found Chinese government documents which said 2008 team member He Kexin was 14 years old and not 16. Forget that asking China to produce documents proving its innocence would be like replacing drug tests with a simple questionaire in which athletes are asked whether they've ever doped or not. And, now, expect the IOC to forget that Dong had proper documentation at one point too, documentation which was clearly forged.

Dong was caught because somebody slipped up and printed a different birthdate on her credentials for Beijing. Instead of being born in on Jan. 20, 1983, as was claimed in Sydney, Dong's listed birthdate was Jan. 23, 1986. On her blog she says she was born in the Year of the Ox, which would fit with the Jan. 1986 birthday. 

The International Gymnastics Federation looked into the allegations following the controversy in Beijing and recommended to the IOC that China be stripped of its medal from 2000 because of Dong's participation. The organization did so Wednesday at a board meeting in Dubai.

This action only happened because the evidence was so overwhelming that the IOC had to act. They didn't seek out the truth, it was thrust upon them. As the organization showed in Beijing, if it had its druthers, it would have swept this under the rug long ago.

Just because China cheated in 2000 doesn't necessarily mean those gymnasts were under 16 in Beijing. It does, however, lead to a lot more questions and should reopen the inquiry. Knowing the IOC, don't hold your breath.

>> Original Report 

By BBC World News
March 16, 2009

Bone tests on teenage athletes in south China have shown that thousands had faked their age, often in order to keep competing in junior events.

Tests on nearly 13,000 athletes found that more than 3,000 were older than their registered age, according to the Sports Bureau of Guangdong Province.

At least one athlete was seven years older than their stated age, but most were said to differ by a year or two.

The news comes as Guangdong prepares to host the 2010 Asian Games.

The investigation is the latest in a number of initiatives by the Chinese authorities to crack down on the practice of age-faking, which many experts believe is rampant.

The expensive bone age analysis tests were carried out on teenage athletes registered with sports academies in Guangdong.

The province's governing body found that about a fifth of those tested had lied about how old they were.

"We must ensure that those athletes faking their ages cannot find any way to take advantage [in competition]," officials were quoted by local media as saying.

"Based on the bone X-ray examinations, we will review all the results of youth sports competition in 2008."

'Widespread practice'

Funding of sport at provincial level is dependent on success.

The BBC's sport news reporter, Alex Capstick, says local officials are under huge pressure to win, which makes them more likely to bend the rules.

It is no surprise some athletes and their families, many of whom see sport as a way out of hardship, have joined in the lie as the system only rewards the very best, our correspondent says.

Chinese athletes have faced repeated claims of age-faking in recent years.

At last year's Olympics in Beijing, some of China's gold-winning gymnasts were alleged to be below the minimum age of 16.

However, after an inquiry, the sport's governing body cleared them of any wrongdoing.

The Chinese Basketball Association recently announced that last year 26 players in the top league had registered an incorrect age. This would have allowed them to represent junior teams when they were in fact too old.

There have been similar problems in football.

At the weekend, it emerged that a badminton player who had won a provincial title as a 14-year-old had now admitted to being 17 at the time of the contest.

>> Original source

By Edward Wong | THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 22, 2009

On Monday, a 62-year-old woman named Zhong Ruihua who traveled from southern China to Beijing during the Paralympics to conduct a protest is scheduled to go on trial for disturbing the public order, according to one of her daughters.

Ms. Zhong will be the first of 10 people from the industrial city of Liuzhou to come to trial for planned protests in September.

The group came to petition for redress for property seizures or destruction that involved local officials, a common complaint among Chinese. The oldest member was a 79-year-old woman.

They never got to protest; within an hour of being interviewed by The New York Times about their plans, they were detained by scores of plainclothes police officers who had followed them from their home in the Guangxi Autonomous Region. They were then driven back south. The daughter, a woman whose name is Ms. Dang, said no one had been allowed to see Ms. Zhong since she was driven back to her hometown.

Another daughter who had come to Beijing with Ms. Zhong is also being detained, said Ms. Dang, who asked that only her surname be used, citing fear of government reprisal.

"I'm not sure how her health is," Ms. Dang said of her mother. "Of course I'm anxious."

Ms. Zhong's original plan when she flew to Beijing was to apply for a permit to hold a protest. During the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the Chinese government had said anyone could apply to hold a protest in one of three designated parks in Beijing. In the end, no permits were granted, and the government even detained some people who had applied, including two frail grandmothers in their 70s.

Ms. Zhong, who had heard about the earlier detentions, said she became too scared to apply for a permit when she heard that she had to do so in person. So on Sept. 10, she and one of her daughters walked out of an apartment in Beijing where Liuzhou's would-be protesters had been hiding. They were on their way to hold their protest when they were picked up by the police from Guangxi.

The other people in the apartment were also detained when they walked out the same afternoon.

One of the other women, Huang Liuhong, and her 4-month-old son have not been seen since September, when the two were put under arrest in a government hotel in Liuzhou, said one of her sisters.

Two other sisters and Ms. Huang's mother, 79, had also gone for the protest and were arrested in September. The mother has been released, but the other sisters are still in jail.

As Ms. Huang was being driven back to Liuzhou in September, she said by cellphone that the police had stripped her of her clothes so she would not flee.

"I have no idea where they are," the sister said Saturday. "The police won't let me see them."

>> Original source

By Edward Wong | THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 16, 2009

A legal advocate who was arrested after applying to hold a protest in Beijing during the Olympic Games in August has been sentenced to three years in prison, said a lawyer who has been asked to represent the man in the appeals process.

The advocate, Ji Sizun, 58, was sentenced on Jan. 7 by a judge in the city of Fuzhou for forging official seals and documents, the lawyer, Lin Kaihua, said Thursday.

Mr. Ji was one of many victims of a tactic employed by the central government during the Beijing Olympics that has angered human rights advocates and has raised questions about whether the International Olympic Committee should have put more pressure on the Chinese government to respect human rights and freedom of speech.

In the prelude to the Games, the government announced that it had designated three parks in Beijing as legal protest zones and that anyone could apply to hold protests in them. When people did apply, however, their requests were ignored or they were detained and arrested.

The government did not allow a single protest to be held in any of the parks. In the most infamous incident of would-be protesters being arrested, two women in their 70s were detained for applying to hold a protest over a land dispute. The women were sentenced to re-education through labor, a punishment handed down to dissidents without judicial review.

Mr. Ji, from the coastal province of Fujian, met with a similar fate. He arrived in Beijing planning to hold a protest against government corruption, an issue that angers many Chinese and that undermines the legitimacy of the government.

On Aug. 9, Mr. Ji went to the Deshengmenwai police station to apply for a permit to protest at the Purple Bamboo Park, one of the three designated protest areas. Mr. Ji had several reporters accompany him because he feared being arrested. He tried to submit his application but was questioned intensely by police officers. The reporters who accompanied him said they were harassed. Mr. Ji left the station that day, but returned two days later to check on the status of his application. The police arrested him then.

He was sentenced by the Taijiang District People's Court in Fuzhou. No one answered the telephone at the court when calls were made seeking comment on Thursday.

Mr. Lin, the lawyer, said that Mr. Ji had asked for his representation during the appeals process but had yet to raise the money to pay the legal fees.

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting.

>> Original source