Discord overshadows Lenovo’s Olympic torch

The curved red and silver shaft of the 2008 Olympic torch, called “Cloud of Promise,” was designed by Lenovo Group to symbolize the harmony of Chinese culture and Olympic ideals. But that’s not what most people will remember about the ongoing relay that will carry the torch to 20 countries before it finally arrives in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games.

The lasting memories of the torch relay will be the demonstrations in London, Paris, San Francisco, and elsewhere by protestors angry about a recent Chinese crackdown in Tibet and the response — an outpouring of Chinese anger, on the Internet and in person, over criticism of the government’s actions in Tibet and a perceived Western media bias against the country. This leaves Olympic sponsors like Lenovo and Samsung  in a bind, facing the risk their brands and products will be associated with the controversy.

The 2008 Olympic Games is meant to be a coming-out party for Beijing, a chance for China to celebrate the great economic and social progress made since the government embarked on reforms 30 years ago. But events leading up to the Games have done more to highlight the gulf that exists between how China sees itself and how many Westerners view the country, underscoring the need for better understanding and a willingness on both sides to consider different views.

There is much to be concerned about.

Images that circulated online of a pro-Tibetan demonstrator attempting to snatch the torch from a former Chinese Paralympic athlete, Jin Jing, during the Paris leg of the relay are disturbing, showing a level of physical confrontation that ignores repeated calls for only peaceful demonstrations by the Dalai Lamai, Tibet’s spiritual leader and head of the Tibetan government in exile.

In turn, threats made by Chinese Internet users against Grace Wang, a Chinese student studying at Duke University in North Carolina, reveal a darker side of Chinese nationalism.

Wang, who tried to mediate between pro-China and pro-Tibet groups during a campus protest, was widely vilified as a “traitor to the Han race” on Internet bulletin boards, a reference to China’s Han ethnic majority. One discussion thread also provided detailed information about her parents, including their names, home address in the Chinese city of Qingdao, and identification card numbers.

China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s state-owned broadcaster, went after Wang as well, calling her “the most hideous student studying abroad” on its Web site.

Recent events also stoked Chinese anger at the Western media, accused of advancing an anti-Chinese agenda and publishing inaccurate reports on the crackdown in Tibet, even though Chinese regulations prohibit foreign reporters from freely visiting Tibet to report on events there. In some cases, that anger turned to harassment of foreign reporters in Beijing.

“NBC News hasn’t been subject to the same level of harassment as some other media outlets, but for several weeks now in the late evenings our bureau has received prank phone calls from Chinese people asking whether we are CNN or just randomly cursing all Western media,” wrote Adrienne Mong, a producer at NBC News’ Beijing bureau, in a blog post.

For many Chinese, CNN commentator Jack Cafferty only made matters worse when he recently described the Chinese government as “goons and thugs.”

Caught against this backdrop of recrimination and anger are the torch-relay sponsors: Lenovo, Samsung, and Coca-Cola. Companies typically shun sponsorship of events that draw protests to avoid being associated with controversy and risk upsetting customers. In the case of the torch relay, all three sponsors remain publicly supportive, but they have little choice. To pull back from sponsorship now would provoke a firestorm of criticism in China, where such a move would inevitably be seen as anti-China and an expression of support for pro-Tibet demonstrators.

“There really needs to be a separation between politics and the Games. The Games are a celebration of all of the qualities that are best in human beings, a celebration of sportsmanship and teamwork. We resist being urged to politicize the Olympic Games,” said Bob Page, a Lenovo spokesman, speaking at the torch relay leg in San Francisco.

Nevertheless, the controversy has had an impact on sponsors. In San Francisco, relay organizers shortened and changed the planned route at the last minute to avoid demonstrators, but the altered route also bypassed thousands of supporters who had turned out to see the torch and show their support for China.

On Monday, a Coca-Cola spokesman confirmed the company scaled back plans to participate in the upcoming Japanese leg of the torch relay, opting not to drive a Toyota Prius decked out with the company’s logo as part of the relay, even as it pushes ahead with other marketing campaigns tied to the Olympics. Samsung and Lenovo also decided to skip the Japanese leg, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

A source familiar with security arrangements for the Japanese leg of the relay said a larger police presence means there won’t be room for sponsor’s vehicles, like Coca-Cola’s car, to participate.

With just over 100 days left to go until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing on Aug. 8, it remains to be seen if the political controversy that surrounded the European and North American legs of the torch relay will persist and overshadow China’s big coming-out party. If the controversy does persist — as it well may — let’s hope cooler heads prevail on both sides.

(Martyn Williams, in Tokyo, and James Niccolai, in San Francisco, contributed to this report.)