Chinese authorities were given another taste of what it can expect during this year’s Olympic games, with Icelandic singer Bjork shouting “Tibet! Tibet! Raise your flag!” during a passionate performance of her song “Declare Independence” during a concert in Shanghai. View YouTube footage of the incident

Björk’s action was not reported in China’s state-controlled media, but incited a prickly nationalism amongst China’s online community.”If she really did this, then this woman really makes people throw up,” one blogger wrote on the popular Chinese website Sina.com. Footage of the incident was soon put up on websites such as YouTube (Click on the icon below to view the YouTube footage).

The rare public reference made to Beijing’s harsh rule over Tibet clearly made audience members uneasy. “The atmosphere was very strange, uncomfortable compared to the rest of the concert,” said audience member Stephen Gow, a British teacher living in Shanghai.

Bjork has used her music to declare political support for various causes. She recently dedicated a song to Kosovo while performing in Japan, and her video for “Declare Independance” shows her bearing the flags of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Will The Olympic Games Be ‘Live’?
Beijing Olympic officials have previously promised that the Beijing Olympics will be broadcast live to the world without the brief delay normally used in Chinese broadcasting.

In August 2006, Wang Wei, executive vice-president and secretary-general of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games said, “It will be live. It won’t be delayed by several seconds.”