Looks like the British press corps in Beijing is pretty pissed off about the manhandling of ITN’s China correspondent yesterday, at least if accounts of today’s IOC-Bocog press conference are anything to go by. Tonight’s Channel 4 News looks set to be interesting:
The IOC was … repeatedly asked by Channel 4 whether it was “in any way embarrassed” by the Chinese government “lying through its teeth” about keeping its promises to improve human rights and press freedom. The IOC communication’s director Giselle Davies prevaricated several times, claiming that “We have to note that there have been enormous steps forward in a number of areas” – but failing to answer the question.
But Channel 4’s Alex Thomson kept pressing, asking how the IOC felt about the “manifest failure of the Chinese government to keep their promises.” Davies again refused to directly answer the question. Instead she said that the IOC was “very proud about how these Games are progressing” before praising the “spectacular venues”.
“I’m not asking about how well the Games are being run, or how wonderful the Games are,” replied Thomson. “Are you embarrassed by China? I don’t think anyone thinks you have answered the question.” Davies smiled, before again talking operational details. “The Olympic Games is largely about the athletes and they have given us extremely strong feedback about how things are going.”
Thomson, by now resisting efforts from two volunteers to force the microphone from him, kept pressure. “We’re not getting anywhere are we?” he said. “Are the IOC embarrassed about the Chinese governments record on human rights? One more chance?” “We have to note the enormous steps in the wider area,” said Davies. “The world is watching and the IOC is appraising.”
As regular readers will know, we’re always on the lookout for lessons from China on how [not] to do public diplomacy. So we’re happy to be able to pass on that faced with a Free Tibet protest in Beijing today, the Chinese authorities decided that as well as arresting all eight protestors, it might be as well to err on the side of caution by roughing up and then detaining ITN’s China correspondent too.
ITN: “John Ray is a fully accredited China correspondent who was doing his legitimate job as a journalist. We intend to protest in the strongest possible terms to the Chinese authorities and seek assurances that the treatment meted out to Mr Ray will not be repeated.”
International Olympic Committee: “The IOC has learned through media reports that a British journalist was allegedly assaulted today while covering a demonstration near an Olympic venue in Beijing. The IOC’s position is clear: the media must be free to report on the Olympic Games. We are endeavouring to discover the full facts of this incident and, if necessary, will raise our concerns with the appropriate authority.”
Reporter: “the level of force was unbelievable”.
This small victory for brand China follows yesterday’s news that the cute 9 year old girl who sang at the Opening Ceremony was in fact lip-synching:
According to the ceremony’s musical director, Chen Qigang, Miss Lin actually lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland” to the voice of another girl after the politburo decided her own singing was not good enough. The replacement singer, however, was deemed not attractive enough to grace the world’s television screens.
“I think all China’s viewers and listeners should understand that was a matter of national interest,” Mr Chen said in an interview with Radio Beijing.
Absolutely. After all, there’s a reputation to uphold.
For those who, like me, find their attention wandering somewhere between the coxless fours and the javelin, there’s some good news. John Fox, one of ECFR’s cadre of China-watchers, has just launched an Olympian blog, which will give a daily political spin on the games. Unless he is transfixed by the dressage events.
Although all the attention lately has been on food prices and the effect of their sharp rise for inflation, development and security, the rises seen on food have been as nothing compared to some of the increases seen on fertilisers over the same period.
A briefing by Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton, published in June by the Future Agricultures consortium, gives chapter and verse. Between May 2006 and May 2008, here’s what prices did for selected key foods and fertilisers:
Cotton – up 29%
Beverages – up 41%
Wheat – up 61%
Maize – up 108%
Rice – up 185%
Urea (a key nitrogen fertiliser) – up 160%
DAP (a major phosphate fertiliser) – up 318%
The underlying causes cover both sides of the supply / demand line. On the demand side, there’s the basic fact that the need for fertilisers is soaring as a result of higher food prices and demand for crops as biofuels.
On the supply side, energy costs are a huge factor (especially in the case of nitrogen fertilisers); some fertiliser exporters (like China) have imposed export controls; and in the background, there are capacity limits to increasing production, especially for phosphates – a point that has the peak oil crowd already thinking hard about the concept of peak phosphorus.
None of this, needless to say, is good news for farmers, who according to the paper find themselves hit twice: once on the affordability of fertilisers when purchasing them, and then again (given food / fertiliser price differentials) on their profitability when using them.
Dorward and Poulton argue that in the short term, it’s still worth developing country governments’ while to subsidise fertiliser use, even if the rates of return are lower – and that donors need to step up fast with additional financing (a proposal that the World Bank signalled its openness to in its ten point plan on food). Dorward, Poulton and the Bank all agree that the question of getting them to the right place – fast – is as important as the question of who picks up the bill.
In the longer term, the paper suggests, the focus needs to be on more integrated soil fertility management with greater use of organic materials [i.e. compost and manure] together with smarter use of inorganic fertilisers – an area of work that the big agricultural research institutes like CIMMYT are already focusing on heavily. Moving towards more integrated soil fertility management already makes sense for reasons of environmental sustainability. If fertiliser prices fail to fall in the longer term, these areas of research are also going to be one of the critical front lines in feeding 10 billion of us.
I can’t be the only one scratching my head at the Conservative Party’s summer holiday reading list. It’s week 2 of silly season, I grant you, and journalists will take pretty much anything on offer, but this just smacks of column filling (that said perhaps some of the larger tomes will act as wind breakers and/or sun shades on the beach).
According to the Sunday Times the reading list was chosen by Keith Simpson, a shadow foreign affairs spokesman and a former lecturer at Cranfield and Sandhurst. This is clearly reflected in his choice of reading material as 24 of the 38 books are on military history, geography, and terrorism. Nudge, the book currently feted by all three political parties looks like a definite afterthought.
What I find so puzzling is the choice of books on offer. I really can’t believe Cameron will be leafing through Empires of the Sea or Five Days in London on his hols.
There are no decent books on China (the more recent by Will Hutton, Charles Grant and Mark Leonard). What about Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody; Diplomacy by Henry Kissenger, or Thomas Rick’s Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005? The list of good books is endless – this list is meaningless.
MPs have approximately 11 weeks off, so here’s how they might spend their summer holiday (according to Keith Simpson):
