Joey Cheek's visa flap over Darfur puts President Bush in sticky position

With President Bush seeking to demonstrate he is not papering over differences with China as he makes his way through Asia, the Chinese decision to keep speed skating champion Joey Cheek out of the country does not make the president's mission any easier.

Cheek, a 2006 Olympic gold medalist, is a co-founder of Team Darfur, an organization of athletes seeking to draw attention to human rights violations in the war-torn African region -- where China is a major purchaser of oil., the Washington Post reported.

He said his visa to visit China was revoked on Tuesday -- effectively prohibiting him from visiting, and presumably drawing attention to China's role in Darfur, during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games beginning Friday.

Bush is on his way to China to attend the opening ceremony and some of the initial competitions.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One today as Bush flew to Thailand, his final stop before reaching Beijing, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said:

We were disturbed to learn that the Chinese had refused his visa. We are taking the matter very seriously.  We have sent in our embassy in Beijing to démarche the Chinese. That is where we go in and we say we are concerned about this, and we want you to reconsider your actions.  So we would hope that they would change their mind.

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

Comments

[Mason]

Bush to China: "Put out your wrist." [Slap, slap, slap]

[David]

I see Joey in sticky position, not Bush. There are so many problems Bush can't solve. Chinese may reconsider, and not change their mind. It is kind of safer for Joey this way. Who know how wacko may harm him in whatever way in China. Are Chinese supposed to protect him specially since he did his thing?

[Joe]

When it comes to China, the US never has had a backbone. We will say we are concerned, they will say they don't care, and we all move on. We ned to start standing up to them or learn chinese... one or the other. Everything we own in America seems to be either made in China or made of chinese parts. If they wanted to, they could crush us economically... just as they threatened to do when we made a stink about all the lead in their products. They own enough US currency to collapse our economy if they wanted. And we will all stand and watch... because we as a people don't seem to care.

[John]

Bring back the bomb, it been far to long. We must use the Nukes, we can't kill them all with our hands.

[sd]

I am not sure why does China even care to host an International game. I think all the countries to protest by not participating. Olympics games are for all the international athletes to come and show their talent. It is not a place to express monarchy.

[sd]

I am not sure why would a country agree to host the Olympics event and then revoke participants visa. This is too much pressure on the participant. I think all the countries to protest by not participating. Olympics games are for all the international athletes to come and show their talent. It is not a place to express monarchy.

[Mawachpo]

Note to reporters covering the Olympics: don't use the words "democracy," "brainwash" or "torture" in your emails, or you could get caught up in China's Internet Web of Censorship.

University of New Mexico Assistant Professor Jed Campbell and his colleagues from UC Davis have been in a years-long study of the words China blocks on the web (see article, below).

To book interviews with Professor Campbell, call Mike Collins Public Relations at 202-494-6105 or email us at mikecollinspr@cox.net. To read more on this topic, visit the UNM website at http://www.unm.edu/~market/cgi-bin/archives/003086.html Thanks!

Banned Words Make For Fun Research

Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal
By Martin Salazar
Journal Staff Writer

One might expect search terms like “democracy movement,” “Tiananmen incident” and even “Playboy magazine” to be blackballed by the People’s Republic of China.

But Polynices — the Greek mythology figure who ticked off his father Oedipus so much that he was cursed to die by his brother’s hand? Yep. The ill-fated lad has somehow managed to land himself on China’s forbidden list of Internet searches.

“Polynices is, I guess, associated with anarchy in some way,” said Jed Crandall, a University of New Mexico assistant professor who is working with researchers from the University of California-Davis to unravel the ins and outs of Chinese Internet censorship. The researchers bounce potentially controversial words off Chinese Internet search engines and publish lists of the ones that apparently have been blocked.

Davis, who teaches computer science classes at UNM, began working on the project about 18 months ago while he was a graduate student at UC-Davis.

So far, the project has been a labor of love for the scientists, who have yet to get funding for the research. Crandall said two proposals have been submitted to the National Science Foundation, and they’re waiting for responses.

The Chinese use what Crandall calls a sophisticated system for censoring Internet content. Rather than blocking specific Web addresses, the system detects banned words in data moving through a network and it sends reset commands that break the connection.

The censorship could impact news coverage of the Olympic games in China, Crandall said. He noted that reporters in China could have a difficult time finding out about protests, hunger strikes or similar events because of the Internet filtering.

While China’s keyword filters are sophisticated, Crandall said, they don’t always work. Among his group’s findings is that a little more than a quarter of the paths tested into China didn’t have a filtering router, meaning the researchers were able to find the banned words. He said the filter also has a tough time preventing the searcher from accessing banned material during busy periods.

Beyond making certain content inaccessible, the goal of the censorship may also be to stop protests and perhaps even to create trade barriers for U.S. companies, Crandall said.

“There are all kinds of different reasons for censorship,” he said. “We want to understand the technical issues of censorship, how it’s implemented and then also how it’s applied so that we can make effective policy in this country.”

It takes the researchers at least a month to test the Chinese filters and figure out what is being blocked. Crandall said his research group eventually would like to be able to track banned words on a daily basis.
He said the censored list changes from time to time and that the banned words and phrases vary somewhat from one Internet service provider to another and from one region to another.

These are some of the Internet phrases banned in China:

Eighty-nine: the year of the Tiananmen Square protest
Anti-corruption forum
Sky burial: a ritual practiced by Tibetans
Mein Kampf: A book by Adolf Hitler
Hitler: recently removed from list
Democracy movement
Brainwash
Eroticism
Playboy magazine
Brutal torture
Source: ConceptDoppler. org