Protests along the torch relay cause bitterness in China - By Georg Blume

Indignation in China is rising after pro-Tibet activists disrupted the torch's passage through several cities in Europe and the U.S. If there is a backlash, will minorities in China face even greater danger?

He's the kind of man no one listens to anymore, one people think just peddles propaganda. Qu Yingpu is Beijing's official spokesman for the Olympic torch relay. Normally, as deputy editor-in-chief of the English-language China Daily, he is one of those who fight against the power of the censor for a more independent press. But now, Qu is touring the world with the torch. He watched as "the Olympic spirit was hijacked by demonstrators" and worried about "public opinion that results from reporting that only knows one side of the story." "What message are the demonstrators and media trying to send to the Chinese?" he asked. "Will it sow the seeds of hate?"

Good questions. Qu was quicker than most to recognize the danger of a deep rift between China and the West. This conflict could reach far beyond the Tibet question: here, as it were, the Western Olympic spoilsports, the moral hypocrites who resent the new worldpower's growth and success; and there the Chinese human rights violators, asserting their anti-religious materialism regardless of the cost.

The outrage in China really is growing - even among the government's severest critics. One of them, Li Datong, a former editor-in-chief who is now unemployed but celebrated in the West for his criticism of the party, was invited to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel during her last Beijing visit. Merkel wanted to annoy the Communist Party by demonstrating that she also speaks to its opponents. Now, Li is annoyed with Germany.

At his Beijing apartment, he showed photos and headlines from the German mass-circulation daily Bild on the computer. Three times, the paper apparently used pictures of protests in Nepal and India to illustrate alleged Chinese oppression of Tibetans. Li is revolted. He says Western coverage of Tibet is just as one-sided as it is in China. He dismisses the romanticized view of Tibet as "blue skies, white clouds and green grasslands." In fact, he says, Tibetan Buddhism must be secularized as, for instance, in Thailand. Chinese policy is less to blame than modernization, according to Li.

None of this detracts from Li's harsh criticism of his government, which he charges with falsely accusing the Dalai Lama. "Without the Dalai Lama, the situation would be far worse," he said. "The separatists would have become terrorists long ago."

If someone like Li rejects Western criticism, then it is not really reaching anyone in China. People in the West might say the Chinese are manipulated and indoctrinated. But most Chinese stand up with conviction for the unity of China- just as the first Qin emperor did more than 2,000 years ago. Even Sun Yat-sen, the democratic founder of modern China a century ago, regarded the five major ethnic groups - the Han, the Tibetans, the Manchu, Mongols, and the Hui - as the "five fingers" of his country.

For most Chinese, that has nothing to do with the Communist Party's ham-handed nationalist propaganda. It's simply the bottom line. Every Chinese government has sought to hold together the great empire. China has 55 ethnic minorities living on 80 percent of the country's territory. Uprisings like the Tibetans' in Lhasa in March are, historically speaking, nothing new. Beijing has always met them with a mixture of handouts and crackdowns.

What shocks the Chinese now is an exile movement, evidently enjoying Western support, that uses the stage of the Olympic games to send the independence cry "Free Tibet!" echoing around the world. "China is too soft and weak, that is why we are being subjected to this kind of harassment today," a contributor to the Chinese Internet portal sina.com fumed.

Even more than in the government media, the Chinese are venting their frustration at playing politics with the Olympic games on the Internet. "So much for democracy, freedom, and human rights - they all just want to see China embarrassed," another contributor added. Yet another wrote: "The Western powers let no opportunity pass to humiliate China. Now they are talking about an Olympic boycott, and their presidents are not coming. Damn it! Then we'll just hold our own Third World Olympics."

Most reactions express disappointment, but a search of Chinese websites also turns up plenty of tirades against "Tibetan dogs" and "French pigs." Olympic torch relay spokesman Qu has warned against those kinds of excesses, calling them "the seeds of hatred." The question is - how far will the Chinese Olympic backlash go? "In a crisis," says the essayist Wang Lixiong, "Chinese nationalism could turn fanatical against the outside world and lead domestically to racism against minorities."

Wang is married to a Tibetan writer, knows the Dalai Lama personally and belongs to the growing number of Chinese intellectuals who identify with Tibetan culture. To him, it seems an alternative to materialism, the spiritual vacuum surrounding Chinese youth. He fears that young people could turn against the Tibetans viciously - even in reaction to Western criticism. That would only reinforce the "evil China" image abroad - a vicious circle.

Most astonishing of all is how Beijing and its Olympic partners in the West have lost their grip on the agenda. Apart from urging on the relay runners, the Communist Party has yet to come up with a response to the worldwide protests by pro-Tibet activists. Meanwhile, Western governments hesitate to fully endorse the Beijing Games.

That angers many Chinese. To be sure, many don't even know what is happening. "What? The torch relay was interrupted?" Yang Yunbiao, mayor of a village in the southeastern province of Anhui, was surprised. Yang is a democratic reformer at the local level, and his reputation has reached as far as the capital. He thinks having the Olympic games in China is an event unparalleled in history. "As a Chinese, I hope with all my heart that Chinese culture and wisdom will be on show to the world," Yang said. Many Chinese have equally high hopes for the Olympics, staged by the Communist Party yet internationally accepted. These hopes are being bitterly disappointed.