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Beijing 2008 will open up China to the world
Dr Jassim Taqui
THE Beijing 2008 Olympic and Paralympics Games will herald a new era
in the contemporary history of China. The whole nation with the
slogan of “one world, one dream” will open up to the world,” stated
Mr. Li Zhanjun, Director General of the Media Center while briefing
a group of journalists from South Asia. In addition to sailing
events in Qingdao and Equestrian events in Hong Kong, 18 sports will
be held in Beijing. Thus the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, will hold
the largest number of sports ever.
According to Zhanjun, 10500 athletes and more than 2500 coaches and
officials from 162 countries will participate. He estimated that
over 21600 reporters, and 30,000 foreign journalists would cover the
event. China has constructed 37 sport venues and conducted 36 test
events. All arrangements for Beijing 2008 have been completed.
The journalists were taken to several sport venues in Beijing
including the majestic National Complex that would embrace 20 sports
and 471 events.
For the first time, China is liberalizing regulation for foreign
reports, who can get permission to cover the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games through simple application .The reporters are permitted to
bring with them equipment necessary for the coverage of the events.
China has permitted 46 satellite dishes this year as compared to 30
during the last year.
Foreign reporters would also be permitted to interview citizens and
ask their opinion about various issues. “We have made huge progress
and we have nothing to hide,” maintained Mr. Zhanjun.
Speaking on the attitude of some Western journalists, Mr. Zhanjun
complained that those who negatively wrote on China had never
visited the country. Hence, he decided to invite many of them to
enable them to see the facts on the ground. Two women journalists
from New York and Australia who wrote negatively about China were
invited to Beijing and were exposed to their areas of interest.
Subsequently, they started writing accurately and beyond the
expectation of the authorities . Now, our statistics show that 82
percent of the Western write ups on China are positive. Earlier,
only 5 percent of the stories on China based on inputs from the
authorities. Now, this figure rose to 48 percent,” boasted Mr.
Zhanjun.
Answering a question on the Beijing 2008 and environment, Zhanjun
said that the government took special care in protecting the
environment and over 120 billion Yuan was spent on the same.
One of the most interesting feature of Beijing 2008 is that the
Beijing 2008 required 100,000 volunteers. However, the authorities
received 1,125,799 applications by the time when the volunteer
enrollment work came to an end. This shows that people from all
sectors of the society received well the message of volunteering to
Beijing 2008. Most people volunteers from Beijing. However,
volunteers were also recruited from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan,
overseas Chinese and foreigners.
Another category of volunteers , called “City Volunteers” were
needed. About 400,000 “City volunteers” will be recruited for which
1,570,000 applied. The recruitment shall be completed by the end of
June 2008.
The third category of volunteer , “Social volunteers”, is the
largest. During the Beijing 2008, more than one million “ social
volunteers” will provide volunteer services at communities, towns,
and public places. Their mission is to create a favourable situation
of the whole nations participating in, serving and contributing to
Beijing 2008 and actively foster a social environment of harmony and
stability.
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