Olympic host China lashed out on Thursday at the United States for interfering in its affairs and insisted it would maintain restrictions on internet use by reporters covering the Games.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticised a White House meeting with leading Chinese dissidents and called some American lawmakers “odious”.
“We express strong discontent and firm opposition to this,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao said about US President George Bush’s encounter this week with dissidents.
“The US side has rudely interfered in China’s internal affairs and sent a seriously wrong message to hostile anti-China forces,” he said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website on Wednesday.
In a separate statement on Thursday, Liu hit out at a resolution by the US Congress that urged Beijing to improve its human rights and stop repression of ethnic minorities.
Liu said the resolution passed on Wednesday was an attempt to politicise the Olympics in Beijing and urged Washington to curb the “odious conduct” of anti-Chinese legislators.
Meanwhile, Olympic organisers said they would not back down on internet censorship for the Olympics, saying banned sites were in breach of Chinese laws.
“A small number of internet sites are blocked, mainly because they violate Chinese law,” Beijing Olympic organising committee spokesperson Sun Weide said when asked whether curbs for the foreign press would be lifted.
“We hope that foreign media will respect Chinese law in this matter.”
Sun identified on Wednesday sites linked to the Falungong spiritual movement, which is outlawed in China, as ones that would remain censored for the foreign press at Olympic venues.
He did not identify any others but reporters trying to surf the internet at the main press centre for the Games found a wide array of sites deemed sensitive by China’s rulers to be out-of-bounds.
Emergency measures
After two days of marked improvement in the air, the Chinese capital was once again blighted by a thick haze, suggesting draconian measures to curb car use had not been enough.
The Environment Ministry on Thursday unveiled a string of potential last-ditch measures if air pollution reached unacceptable standards.
“When there are extremely unfavourable weather conditions, there will be some emergency measures,” the ministry said in a statement, fleshing out the details from an announcement earlier in the week.
Cars in the capital would not be allowed on the roads if the vehicle’s last digit on the licence plate was the same as the last digit for the date, the statement said.
Measures restricting traffic would also be extended to the nearby city of Tianjin and major cities in neighbouring Hebei province, the ministry said.
The ministry said it was prepared to close a further 222 factories in Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin if conditions were poor.
There would also be a ban on construction activity, according to the statement.
Beijing has already taken drastic steps to reduce pollution, amid heavy criticism from athletes and environmental groups.
In the most dramatic of the recent anti-pollution steps, one million of the city’s 3,3-million cars were taken off the roads on July 20, and more than 100 heavily polluting factories and building sites were closed down.
Olympic organisers have warned that endurance events such as the marathon could be postponed or cancelled if pollution levels are too high. — AFP