By FRANK CHING, The Globe and Mail
February 6, 2008

Ever since it won the right to play host to the 2008 Olympics, China has been hoping that the Summer Games would substantially raise its international prestige as hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of journalists, flock to the Chinese capital. But there is now a growing danger that the opposite may happen. This is because the government, which is investing billions of dollars on Olympics facilities and doing everything possible to maintain political stability, has launched a crackdown on political activists and human-rights campaigners, resulting in bad publicity for the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party.

  While opinion surveys show that China's image was improving a few years ago, the situation reversed as the government cracked down on dissent beginning in mid-2005. A UPI-Zogby poll last May, for example, showed that 87 per cent of Americans held an unfavourable opinion of the Chinese government. Moreover, surveys in Russia, South Korea, Britain, France, India, Lebanon, Spain, Germany, Japan and Turkey show that China's image in 2007 was worse than in previous years.

  This decline in image is obviously related to the political crackdown in China. Figures for 2007 are not yet available, but, in 2006, there were more than twice as many arrests as the previous year for the political offence of endangering state security - a charge used to silence journalists, civil-rights lawyers and advocates of religious freedom. While 296 individuals were arrested in 2005, the number jumped to 604 in 2006.

  All signs are that the crackdown is continuing and, in fact, intensifying. At the end of the year, Chinese police seized a leading human-rights advocate, 34-year-old Hu Jia, from his Beijing home; on Jan. 28, he was charged with "inciting subversion of state power." Because "state secrets" are said to be involved, the trial will be closed and Mr. Hu is likely to be given a stiff prison term.

  Mr. Hu's arrest has led to an outcry outside China. The U.S. State Department has raised the case with China, and the European Parliament has approved a resolution calling on the Chinese government "not to use the Olympic Games as a pretext to arrest and illegally detain and imprison dissidents, journalists and human-rights activists who either report on or demonstrate against human-rights abuses."

  A month before he was detained, Mr. Hu took part via webcam in a European Parliament hearing during which he criticized China's handling of Olympic preparations. He reportedly said it was "ironic that one of the people in charge of organizing the Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human-rights violations."

  There have been some signs of reform in the run-up to the Olympics, such as a drop in the number of executions. China has also issued new rules governing organ transplants to curb widespread abuses. But, in overall terms, it has moved backward.

  The arrest of Mr. Hu is particularly deplorable. He was an early AIDS and environmental activist, but, in recent years, has been functioning as a one-man human-rights commission, drawing attention to such people as the blind self-taught legal activist Chen Guangcheng, now serving a four-year prison term, the civil-rights lawyer Guo Feixiong, now serving a five-year term, and the crusading defence lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been repeatedly detained.

  The Chinese government frequently responds that the human-rights situation is much better now than previously. It is certainly true that things used to be much worse during the Maoist period. But the situation is still deplorable, and there is no reason for either the international community or China to be satisfied.

  If the Chinese want to show the world they are serious about safeguarding their people's rights, Beijing should ratify the international covenant on civil and political rights it signed 10 years ago. That would send a message to its own people and the world that it really respects human rights.