The temperature is rising. From AP, via CNN:

The president of the International Olympic Committee rejected the idea of boycotting the Summer Games in Beijing over China's crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only hurt athletes.

"We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Jacques Rogge told reporters Saturday on this Caribbean island. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing."

***

The head of the Swiss Olympic Committee told state-owned DRS radio that he is against a boycott but wants the IOC to intervene with China over the troubles in Tibet.

"The Rubicon has been crossed," Joerg Schild said. "I can't bring myself to say that we're going to go there and do sport."

***

IOC vice president Thomas Bach said the committee will speak with China about human rights, but boycotting the games "would be the wrong way because that will cut lines of communication."

European officials joined the IOC in urging Beijing to end the violence and engage in dialogue, but also said politics should not intrude on the spirit of the games.

"The Olympics must be held in an atmosphere of true brotherhood," EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told Italy's ANSA news agency. "Otherwise this feast of sport would be seriously at risk."


A friend of mine, a longtime China resident and former diplomatic interpreter, suggested that bleed between foreign and domestic media that exists today means that China has rather painted itself into a corner with regard to communication about Tibet. The need to maintain consistency with the rosy picture of Tibet and villainous picture of the Dalai Lama painted internally has meant the loss of some flexibility in communicating with international audiences for whom this unsubtle messaging hasn't always washed (see the Xinhua article from yesterday's post, or this one, which connects the DL to the Nazis for some examples of the kind of stuff that clangs off of the ears of international audiences).

As the pressure rises, it will be interesting to see how sophisticated China can be in communicating about the situation in Tibet, and whether the government can introduce a little nuance into its public diplomacy. Over the past 24 hours or so, the approach has evolved a bit. Much of the most recent state media coverage features quotations attributed to Tibetans that condemn the violence and underscore government messages. (Examples here, here and here, all from Xinhua.) We'll see how far this approach gets, and what else they have up their sleeve.

Update:

Interesting article in the Times on some of the issues exposed by the crisis:

The devastation and chaos in Lhasa poses a huge problem for the Chinese government. For a regime that prizes stability above all else, it is the ultimate challenge to legitimacy.

On one level it shatters the carefully fostered illusion that Tibetans are the happy recipients of Chinese money and progress. On another, it has destroyed the reputation for efficiency of the Chinese security forces by exposing their inability to predict an uprising and their failure to protect the Chinese inhabitants of Lhasa.

Recriminations are already rife in China about the apparent breakdown of its much-vaunted intelligence agencies, which are widely if inaccurately believed to monitor every dissident move.

The article invokes the spectre of another Tian'anmen. Let's hope that proves to be over-dramatizing things.

See also:

Shanghaiist's comprehensive roundup

China Digital Times (B) on different sentiments from Chinese Internet users (plus some interesting demographic analysis)