Beijing Four© Update II
Well, in retrospect, it may have been a mistake for China to piss these guys off. The folks at Reporters Without Borders are journalists who advocate for other journalists, which means that if you mess with them, they’re going to smear you with a lot of very black ink. That’s exactly what’s happening:
I especially recommend the WaPo story. The lesson? If you really want to give someone a royal P.R. beating, bait them into roughing up a few journos; hence, this particular stunt is turning into the biggest P.R. beating China has taken all year (all two weeks of it!). Even Mrs. O.F.K, a certifiably apolitical techno-geek has been following the story to an extent.
Reporters Without Borders has a site up especially for lobbying the International Olympic Committee to move the Olympics out of Beijing. That’s not going to happen, but a strong response could set up a string of controversies and “events” that will lead to a parade of negative coverage of China’s human rights record, which will depress foreign tourism and make Beijing 2008 an even bigger fiasco than Athens 2004. It ought to be our goal to make North Korean refugees a part of that coverage.
This could work. China doesn’t much care about international law or public opinion per se, but it cares very much about loss of revenue. They’re now embarking on one of the biggest public works expenditures in their history, and they’re counting on hordes of foreign tourists to help them pay for it. If we can manage to make this issue a big deal, China might not feel free to drag screaming mothers and toddlers away from embassy gates. Even China wouldn’t dare do that before the Olympics. That would be very bad news for Kim Jong Il.
It took me less than thirty seconds to sign the RSF petition, and less than five to click a link on a return e-mail to confirm (most of that was spent trying to find some damn English in the text, but since these guys have their hearts in the right place, and even criticize the French government, I’m not doing any amphibian or capitulating simian references today). If you’re inclined to sign it, I hope you’ll click the graphic on the right side of the page and register your support.