Chinese Spin on Olympics Protests

How the Olympic torch protests played out on Chinese TV.

ByABC News
January 8, 2009, 12:12 AM

BEIJING, April 7, 2008 — -- When pro-Tibet activists disrupted the Olympic torch relay in London, television viewers in China might be forgiven for thinking everything was going well in the British capital thousands of miles away. The London relay was not broadcast live on Chinese TV and the widely watched evening newscast did not mention the protests that night.

Those who had access to CNN International and BBC World Service mainly foreigners staying in select hotels and residential compounds and a growing number of Chinese homes equipped with satellite dishes got their first indication of the protests when their cable TV signals were interrupted several times during the broadcast, particularly when the activists got in the way of the torch-bearer.

Perhaps it was because it happened on a Sunday evening in China when people, including officials, were enjoying a slow weekend. At any event, the state of blissful ignorance for ordinary Chinese viewers lasted for about seven hours.

The first indication of official anger finally came in a dispatch from the official Xinhua news agency after midnight.

A report described how London police foiled an attempt to grab the Olympic torch and a statement from a Beijing Olympic official strongly criticized the activists for attempting to "sabotage" the Olympic torch relay and "defying" the Olympic spirit.

The stage was now set for explaining the protests to the Chinese public.

The Monday editions of Chinese newspapers all carried the same Xinhua report and the statement from the Beijing Olympic official, although these items were downplayed in comparison to longer reports about the Olympic torch's "warm reception in cold London," as the China Daily put it in its headline.

State TV newscasts on Monday began to show the video of the pro-Tibet protests in London, using the same video distributed by international news agencies but with a Chinese spin.

Chinese viewers saw what other international viewers saw the night before: an activist trying to grab the torch from a young female torch-bearer, another activist being subdued by British police after he tried to put out the torch's flame with a fire extinguisher, and other activists being pinned down by the police after they tried to approach the torch-bearer.