The Beijing Olympic games are facing a crisis — International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge acknowledged that fact in recently in Beijing. It’s a crisis Chinese officials likely wish they weren’t facing now, just four months from the opening ceremony. But China’s response to the crisis is hardly helping.
A funny thing happened on the way to China’s Olympics coming out party. A country that has waged a sophisticated and successful charm offensive in recent years now seems tone deaf to how seriously its crackdown on Tibet is damaging its international image
A day after the Olympic torch rally in San Francisco was cut short to avoid a conflict with thousands of protesters, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman gave an alternate-universe description of the events.
The president of the International Olympic Committee called on China to honor the moral undertaking it had made when it bid for the Olympics — to improve its human rights situation.
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