US lawmakers accuse China of reneging on Olympic promises

AFP on Yahoo ^ | 7/23/08 | AFP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US lawmakers Wednesday accused China of reneging on a commitment to improve human rights when it won the right to host the Olympics, saying it had instead intensified a crackdown on dissent.

"There were early indications that China was prepared to improve its behavior as the games approached," said Howard Berman, the Democratic head of the House of Representatives foreign affairs panel.

But "the hope was short-lived, as China failed to honor these commitments," he said, citing as examples Beijing's "failed" pledges to allow greater press freedoms and improve its general human rights situation.

Reporters Without Borders announced in its annual report on China that in 2007 the government "did everything possible to prevent the liberal press, Internet users and dissidents from expressing themselves."

A recent poll by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China found that 67 percent of foreign journalists felt China was not keeping its promise to allow freedom of reporting, Berman said.

He also cited China's deadly crackdown on protests in March and the arrest in December of Hu Jia, a leading fighter for human rights, health care and the environment, and questioned China's "ardent" support for governments in Sudan and Myanmar despite their rights records.

Beijing's support for Robert Mugabe's hardline regime in Zimbabwe was also raised, especially its veto of a UN Security Council resolution that would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and travel and financial restrictions on the leader and other senior officials.

The House foreign affairs committee is scheduled to discuss a resolution Thursday on China's human right record in the run up to the Olympics.

[AU72]

Claude Reins is shocked, shocked that repression is still going in the PRC.

[Red in Blue PA]

What promises have they kept????

[SierraWasp]

Hey! Nobody like a reneger!! Whether it's China, or Arnold Schwartzenreneger!!!

How 'bout a game of canasty???

[WayneS]

Two weeks befor the Olympics starts is a little late to suddenly “notice” that China hasn’t improved their “human rights” record, isn’t it?

Plus, we knew they were totalitarian savages when we stood by and let them get the olympics, right?

But wait, I’m forgetting that the “Peoples Republic of Cheap Plastic Crap” is one of our most important trading partners, aren’t I?

[WayneS]

“A bunch of ignorant, stupid bastards” is about the only way to describe the Congress of the United States of America in this, the year of our Lord, 2008, isn’t it?

[ladtx]

Snicker - our congresscritters are soooooo gullible.

[NormsRevenge]

I sure wonder who the hell some of them are really working for, it sure ain’t ol’ Joe Public.

It’s a face saving exercise. move along, nothing to see here..

[Blood of Tyrants]

Surprised? Why should they be? They have done NOTHING to encourage China to stop its human rights abuses.

[NormsRevenge]

Paramilitary policemen, who will take charge of the Qinhuangdao division of the Beijing Olympic Games security, attend an oath-taking rally to ensure the safety of the Olympics in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province July 23, 2008. Qinhuangdao will be hosting soccer matches. REUTERS/China Daily

[NormsRevenge]

Surf's up!

A cameraman is seen filming through a glass tube containing recycled water during an official visit to the Qing River Sewage Treatment Plant which supplies water to the Olympic Lake in the Olympic Green area July 23, 2008. The plant is part of Beijing's Olympic recycling water programme, that officials claim now recycles 52 percent of all the city's waste water. The programme is part of the $40 billion yuan (US$5.8 billion ) upgrade to the city's infrastructure to host the Olympic Games in August. REUTERS/David Gray

[Czar]

It's called learned behavior. Remember, everything Red China learned, they learned from that draft-dodging, accused rapist of an impeached POS President, Clinton, who traded our highly classified weapons data for campaign cash. Since there was nothing they couldn't get away with under Billy Jeff, they logically assume they can continue to renege on promises, commitments and contracts, just as in the past.

[rod1]

Oh wow. How many decades of the cold war and the Congressional democrats actually expect us to believe that trusting communists is a smart move by responsible politicians?

Maybe it would have come out better if they had followed Favre’s lead and called Bejing using their special “Red Book” phones.