By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 7, 2007

BEIJING, Aug. 7 -- China's Olympic organizers said Monday that they will not allow the 2008 Beijing Games to be turned into a sounding board for foreigners with a political agenda. But even as they spoke, foreign demonstrators demanded the release of political prisoners and unfurled a banner depicting the five Olympic rings as handcuffs.

The protest, staged by the international press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, was a rare open expression of anti-government sentiment in the heart of the capital. Although it involved only a handful of people, it dramatized official concerns here that protests could cast a pall over what the country's political leaders intend to be a joyful coming-out party for modern China and its Communist Party government.

The warning Monday and the brief protest were both timed to the start of an elaborate one-year countdown of ceremony and civic events, scheduled to end with the Games' opening ceremonies on Aug. 8, 2008.

In recent days, international human rights groups have accused the government here of reneging on promises of press freedom and other rights that it made to gain the International Olympic Committee's approval to host the Games.

Reporters Without Borders' secretary general, Robert Ménard, said during Monday's demonstration that the group fears there has been little change in China's attitude toward access to the Internet, free expression in print and broadcast media and imprisonment of dissident journalists.

"It is the Chinese government that has taken hostage the Olympic Games, because it does not respect its own commitments," Ménard told the Reuters news agency at the protest across the street from the Beijing Organizing Committee's headquarters.

Some U.S. and European entertainment and political figures have also called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics unless China brings more pressure on Sudan to resolve the conflict in its western region of Darfur. China is Sudan's largest oil customer and has provided weapons to the Khartoum government.

Closer to home, Chinese officials have expressed worry that anti-government groups such as separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang province or the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement could use the international focus on China during the Olympics to promote their causes. This would be particularly difficult to handle, analysts said, in the case of sympathizers holding foreign passports who arrive during the Games to stage demonstrations like the one held Monday.

Jiang Xiaoyu, one of the organizing committee's executive vice presidents, told reporters Monday that China welcomes intense foreign news coverage, including criticism, before and during the Olympic Games. But he added that Beijing organizers will not accept attempts by rights groups and others to inject into the mix political agendas unrelated to the competition.

"We are absolutely opposed to politicization of the Olympics," Jiang said. "This is against the Olympic spirit and against the Olympic charter."

The Foreign Ministry issued new regulations beginning Jan. 1 that say foreign reporters have the right to report without interference by authorities. But despite the new rules and Jiang's pledge of openness, Beijing police forced several foreign reporters who were covering the Reporters Without Borders protest to remain at the site for more than an hour. Some were pushed and shoved, they reported, before being released without explanation.

The protesters were escorted by police to Beijing's international airport Tuesday morning for a previously scheduled flight out of the country, the group reported.

One of the prominent foreigners threatening to turn his back on the Beijing Games is movie producer Steven Spielberg, who had agreed to serve as artistic adviser for a spectacular opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m., a date and time reflecting the Chinese folk belief that the number 8 brings good luck.

Spielberg's spokesman, Andy Spahn, told ABC News last month he was considering pulling out because of China's role in the Darfur crisis but was awaiting a statement from Beijing.

Jiang, asked about Spielberg's status, said that the producer had volunteered to help design the ceremony but that no contract had yet been signed. "We welcome Mr. Spielberg's participation," he added, without addressing the Darfur issue.

Jiang and another executive vice president, Wang Wei, said preparations for the Games are on schedule one year out, with brisk ticket sales helping to finance construction. Air pollution is declining, they said.

"Good air quality and blue skies in Beijing are not only very important for the opening ceremony but also for the health of the athletes, the spectators and the people of the city," Wang said. "In the past several years, Beijing's air quality has improved a lot."

As he spoke, humidity, dust and exhaust fumes so reduced visibility in the streets outside that office towers only 1,000 yards away appeared as fuzzy hulks. Thunder rolled and a timid summer shower came down later in the day, providing relief from several days of what seemed to the unscientific eye to be severe pollution. Elsewhere in the expansive capital, heavy rain fell, causing temporary flooding.

The State Environmental Protection Administration rated the city "lightly polluted" Monday. According to the agency's measurement system, Wang noted, the number of what are called good air quality days has risen from 17.6 percent of the year in 2000 to 66 percent in 2006.

Beijing Olympic and municipal officials announced last month that they would drastically reduce traffic during the two weeks the Olympics will run as part of the city's efforts to cut pollution. As many as a million cars -- one-third the number typically jamming Beijing's streets -- will be banned during the Games, they said, and a two-week test of the ban was set to begin Tuesday. But Wang said the announcements were premature and that officials were still studying how to reduce traffic and air pollution.