With PM Rudd back in Canberra and the IOC delegates jetting back to their home countries, ATC’s representative in Beijing has a look at the ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium and the social contrasts that such rapid development stirs up. Here’s the latest report and video blog.

Day 5 - Looking Ahead

It’s been a fascinating week. Deeply encouraging to see so many Australians get behind the Tibetan people and to see Kevin Rudd stand firm and deliver a strong message to the Chinese leadership. But deeply frustrating that neither China’s Premier Wen Jiabao nor President Hu Jintao hinted at any softening in their stance and that the IOC has approved the passage of the Olympic Torch through Tibet.

This afternoon I headed over to the Olympic Park. The scale of this place, like everything in Beijing, is mind-boggling. Once again I am reminded of the contrast between the extraordinary economic rise and material growth that one side of China has enjoyed and the price that has been paid for this by the other, including of course the majority of Tibetans.

Maybe the Olympics will change China. Maybe with all the attention now on Tibet, Burma, East Turkistan, Darfur and minorities within China, the Chinese Communist Party will just have to confront these issues. But for now, the Chinese leadership seems to be holding firm.

The only thing we can be certain about is that the story is far from over. What happens next depends in part on what we, the international community, continue to do to stand up for Tibet. Surely, if we maintain this momentum, at some point those in China with the power to make changes will see that it is in their own interests to peacefully resolve the Tibet issue. Until that time, we’re just going to have to keep trying.

Tashi Delek.

Day 4 (Friday) - Don’t Torch Tibet

This evening IOC President Jacques Rogge is giving a press conference. The conference comes at the end of 10 days in which all the major organizing bodies for the Beijing Olympics, including the IOC, the Coordination Commission and the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), have been meeting in Beijing.

After an afternoon of running back and forth across town to brief Reuters, the Associated Press, Deutsche Presse-Agentur and other news agencies on calls to remove Tibet from the Olympic Torch route, I’m now at the China World Trade Centre, a huge modern hotel and conference complex in downtown Beijing where the meetings are taking place.

We know that the IOC executive spent part of the day discussing the future of the torch relay. We have all seen the extraordinary scenes in London, Paris and San Francisco where despite overbearing and sometimes comical security measures Tibetans and Tibet supporters have refused to be silent, taking every opportunity during the torch’s passage to highlight the ongoing situation in Tibet.

In San Francisco the torch and it’s blue tracksuit clad ‘torch attendants’ arrived under the cover of darkness, played cat and mouse with protestors, hid briefly in a warehouse and diverted from the iconic waterfront to take in a tour of used car yards and factories.

The relay legs through Europe and the US have become a PR disaster for the Chinese government. In predictable fashion, the response by Chinese authorities, in accordance with their approach to the whole issue of Tibet, has been to downplay the events, deny that there is a problem and ramp up security measures.

Well, as the whole world can now see, there IS a problem in Tibet, a problem that no amount of force, intimidation and propaganda can solve. A problem that has its routes in decades of repression, exploitation and poor development strategies. A problem that can only be solved through dialogue, mutual trust and a practical path forwards.

Nonetheless, China’s leaders are refusing thus far to soften their position on Tibet and remain determined to carry the torch up Mount Everest and through Lhasa and other areas of Tibet. Long before the recent period of intense unrest began, the inclusion of Tibet in the route was being viewed as a political manoeuvre intended to legitimise the current policies in Tibet.

Going ahead with this plan in the wake of recent events would only serve to deepen the crisis and prompt further unrest, leading only to more arrests and more suffering inside Tibet. Worryingly, Qiangba Puncog, the Communist Party Chief in Tibet has said that ‘anyone who attempts to disrupt or undermine the torch will be dealt with severely’. More than ever, China’s leaders need to engage sincerely with the Dalai Lama, not make further heavy-handed attempts to cement policies that by now it must know are unsustainable.

The Chinese Government’s biggest problem in Tibet is a complete lack of acceptance among the Tibetan people. Clearly, you cannot gain the respect and loyalty of a people through repression, marginalisation and intimidation and the majority of Tibetans unsurprisingly remain fervently loyal to the Dalai Lama. It is thought by many that China’s leaders are waiting for the present Dalai Lama to die for a perceived opportunity to seize greater control over Tibet. However, as the chief of one of the main newswires over here told me today, they have a far better opportunity to solve the Tibet issue while the 14th Dalai Lama is still alive. At present the Dalai Lama commands immense loyalty and respect from the Tibetan people, indeed from many people around the world. He has extended a very pragmatic, compromising and reconciliatory hand to the Chinese leadership and offered to work through dialogue to an arrangement of meaningful autonomy. Without the Dalai Lama’s assistance in reaching a peaceful and mutually agreeable solution, the task is going to be much harder.

So once again we return to the topic of the Olympic torch. Tibet support groups have been pressuring the IOC this week to urge the Chinese government to acknowledge the current crisis, remove Tibet from the torch route and begin instead a process of sincere dialogue.

Update, 8.45pm Friday evening
The Press Conference has finished. Asked about the torch relay, IOC President Jacques Rogge has confirmed that the torch will be taken through Tibet.

Day 3 (Thursday) – The Press Conference

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There is no doubt that Tibet is the main thing on everyone’s minds. And I think we’ve all been very encouraged by the Prime Minister’s willingness to raise the Tibet issue throughout his world tour. Particularly, that here in Beijing he has refused to waver under diplomatic pressure from Chinese authorities and has instead repeated publicly his concerns over Tibet.

Though I have not yet seen the full transcript of the press conference, the few snippets I’ve gathered from people as they come out indicate that Mr. Rudd did discuss Tibet with the Premier at some length, conveying Australians’ deep concern over the current situation and encouraging the Chinese leadership to sit down with the Dalai Lama before the Olympics and begin a path through dialogue to a peaceful resolution. The PM apparently did not reveal much about Wen Jiabao’s response, saying only that China’s approach to Tibet appears pretty much as they have revealed publicly. In other words - tough, unrelenting and showing little interest in any kind of constructive route forward.

China’s continued bloody-mindedness over Tibet is deeply frustrating, all the more now that calls for dialogue are coming from almost every corner of the world. But there are still four months till the Olympics, still time for China to engage properly with the Dalai Lama, a step that would boost China’s international reputation far more than the Olympics can.

Despite no sign of the Chinese leadership yielding to such suggestions, we’re continuing to encourage Mr. Rudd to do all he can to try and broker a new and more robust dialogue between the two parties. He still has the all-important meeting with President Hu Jintao on Saturday and we are dearly hoping that he will go one step further than his statements so far and offer to facilitate meaningful, results-based talks between China and the Dalai Lama.

Day 2 (Wednesday) - Chasing Kevin

Sadly, the kind of vibrant and colourful demonstrations we’re so used to back in Australia just aren’t possible here, not yet, at least not unless you want to find yourself on the next plane home. And that’s if you’re an Aussie. As we have all seen, the consequences for Tibetans who speak up are far more grave.

With some important work left to do it didn’t seem like the time was right to blow my cover. So instead it’s been a day of snooping around, briefing journalists in coffee shops and taking every opportunity behind the scenes to help get the message where it matters.

The day began up at Beijing University with the PM giving a speech in Mandarin to a group of Chinese students. Echoing comments he made last week in the US, the PM said that ‘the current situation in Tibet is of concern to Australians’ and that ‘we recognise the need for all parties to avoid silence and find a solution through dialogue’. Most encouragingly, at a press conference later he vowed to raise Tibet in his upcoming meetings with Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao.

This is a good start but we are going to need the PM to do all he can over the coming days. Today China has been as fierce as ever in its criticism of the Dalai Lama and continues to flout growing international calls for dialogue.

Clearly angered by Rudd’s assertions this morning, in a separate press conference this afternoon Tibetan Regional Government chairman Xiangba Puncog called Rudd’s assertions ‘totally unfounded’, arguing preposterously that ‘people in Tibet are now enjoying democracy and have wonderful human rights protection’.

Also this afternoon a small group of monks interrupted a tightly controlled media tour in Labrang, Gansu (formerly part of the Tibetan province of Amdo), just as had been done during a previous such tour in Lhasa two weeks ago. Knowing full well that they risk imprisonment and torture, Tibetans continue to bravely reveal the reality behind China’s carefully constructed facade.

Tomorrow is an important day, with the PM due to meet Premier Wen Jiabao in the Great Hall of the People in the morning. Will our PM fulfil his mandate from the Australian people and get tough on Tibet with the Premier, urging that he talk to the Dalai Lama? Well, we’re going to keep pushing.

P.S. Some further comments on China’s policies in Tibet.
Certainly, over the last two decades China has poured enormous amounts of money into Tibet, developing new infrastructure, growing Tibet’s cities and working hard to integrate the once inaccessible region into the Chinese economy. However, the patterns of urban-centric development, unchecked economic migration and rigorous exploitation of Tibet’s unique and fragile environment have torn apart the traditional rural economy of Tibet and created the widest rich-poor divide of anywhere in China. Displaced from their traditional rangelands to make way for new developments, Tibetan nomad families are deprived of their livelihoods and driven to the cities, now flooded with Han Chinese economic migrants. Without fluency in Mandarin and familiarity with Chinese work culture, Tibetans are unable to gain a foothold in the new industries. Many are being driven into poverty.

Economist Andrew Fischer uses the term ‘ethnically exclusionary growth’ to describe China’s divisive economic strategies Tibet. Tibetans have been made a disadvantaged minority within their own territory. Working from official Chinese statistics, unemployment among young Tibetan men in Lhasa can be calculated as between 60 and 80 percent.

Furthermore, despite assurance to the international community of improvements in human rights and basic freedoms ahead of the Olympics, the situation in Tibet has deteriorated alarmingly in the last year. Respected international watchdogs including Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have documented significant increases in arbitrary arrests and detention, further restrictions on foreign media and denial of the most basic religious and cultural freedoms.

Day 1 (Tuesday) - Under the Radar

While our Australian papers are covered in images of the torch being disrupted at every turn, here the media suggests nothing other than business as usual. Even with the IOC in town and about to discuss, among other things, the possible cancellation of the relay, there is no hint of concern on the streets that China’s great ‘coming out party’ may be about to become the mother of all PR catastrophes.

On this typically suffocating morning, smiling tour groups in matching baseball caps criss-cross Tiananmen Square, site of another grave black mark on China’s report card. Every second shop along Beijing’s modern shopping precincts is stacked with garish Olympic merchandize. Giant TV screens carry videos of runners, cyclists, kayakers, interspersed with feel-good animations and stirring iconic panoramas of the Great Wall and Forbidden City. Traffic roars up and down the wide avenues. Shiny new cars outnumber the bicycle rickshaws 10 to 1.

2,000 miles away, Tibetans, repressed and driven into poverty, continue to risk their lives in desperate cries for an end to China’s destructive rule in their homeland.

In Tibet, China’s unfair development policies have created the widest rich-poor divide of anywhere in China. For decades Tibetans have endured ever escalating repression, economic marginalisation and destruction of their fragile environment.

Now they are rising up in their thousands.

Today our own Kevin Rudd arrives for four days of meetings with the Chinese Leadership. Fluent in Mandarin, well versed in Chinese culture and politics and held in high regard by both the Dalai Lama and Hu Jintao, no world leader is better positioned to help break the current impasse than Rudd. With over 50,000 signatures from Get-Up supporters and over 70% of Aussies believing he should use his special standing with the Chinese to try and broker a lasting peace in Tibet, our PM has the strongest possible mandate to help resolve the Tibet issue.

Reading today’s international newspapers, it seems clear to almost everyone but the Chinese leadership that only sincere engagement with the Dalai Lama and a constructive dialogue over Tibet’s future can get China out of this fix. It seems obvious to everyone else that meaningful steps towards resolving the Tibet issue would boost China’s reputation far more than a successful Olympics. China’s leaders need honest friends to tell them this, friends with credibility among the Chinese people. And right now it seems clear to almost everyone but Kevin Rudd that he has an important role to play here.