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DEL.ICIO.USChina, Tibet, and two Georgia events
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue and some 60 tagalongs — state officials, business and academic types, and press — depart on Sunday for Shanghai and Beijing.
The trip marks the debut of Delta Airline’s non-stop Atlanta-to-Shanghai service, and the opening of a trade office in Beijing.
Both are big, much-anticipated events. Delta is in difficult straits, and Georgia’s economy is swooning. But diplomatically speaking, the trip couldn’t come at a worse time — in the midst of China’s largest spate of internal unrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Thousands of Chinese troops have been roughly injected into Tibet and neighboring provinces. The authoritarian nation, already made nervous by the prospect of uncontrollable visitors to the Beijing Olympics this summer, has shut down borders and barred the international press from its western reaches.
A Chinese team will make its North American debut in next month’s Tour de Georgia. Chris Hunt/AJC
Expect Perdue & Co. to adopt a business-as-usual attitude throughout the six-day trip. President Bush set the tone late last week when he announced the unrest in Tibet would not affect his plans to make an appearance at the Olympics.
“We defer to the federal government on all foreign policy matters. We go to effect economic development, and we will stay away from diplomatic issues,” said Chris Young, Perdue’s chief of protocol.
Gary Black, who’ll be making the trip as president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said the briefing he received last week made no mention of Tibet. “This was a briefing that we would have gotten six months or six weeks ago,” he said.
In case the topic didn’t come up, members of the Georgia delegation might want to take heed of this “Olympics Fact Sheet” just put out by the U.S. State Department, which notes:
“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.”
The governor’s most careful moments are likely to come during the speech he’s scheduled to give in Beijing, apparently on the topic of economic gains that China might expect this summer — if all goes well. The title of Perdue’s address is “Open for Business: The International Spotlight of the Olympic Games.”
But when it comes to China and Tibet, state officials may be less worried about a slip of the tongue during a business trip, and more worried about what happens in Georgia next month.
The Tour de Georgia, now with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle at its head, has snagged the first Chinese bicycle team ever to compete in North America. Like most modern bicycle squads, the make-up of the GE Marco Polo team is international, but it will be led by Olympic hopeful Li Fuyu of China.
The Chinese television network CCTV has committed to carrying the race, which runs April 21-27.
Bicycle races and protests have a long history, and it’s entirely possible that “Free Tibet” signs could pop up in the farthest reaches of rural Georgia. Attempting to shield a 600-mile event from demonstrators would be futile.
“The event is not a political event. That said, we can’t dictate to people where they can engage in demonstrations or messaging,” said Chris Aronhalt, the tour director. “But at this point, there’s no cause for alarm.”
Comments
By ridneckConslurp
March 24, 2008 4:14 PM | Link to this
Someone holding flags should stand in front of the chinese bicyclists.
By Room service?
March 24, 2008 4:29 PM | Link to this
“All hotel rooms … are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.” Hopefully, Perdue will remember while in China that he is the governor of Georgia, not the governor of New York. :)
By TT
March 24, 2008 8:58 PM | Link to this
To Room service?
That’s a good one. I like it.To ridneckConslurp
I strongly encourage you go ahead do it yourself. The only new info I have for you is one of the Chinese atheletes is actually a Tibetan. Make sure you stand on the right lane and don’t block him, if you can tell apart a Tibetan from other guys :)
By Uncle Jessie
March 25, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this
Why ain’t ya’ll fussin bout Sonny goin to Comminist China? They kilt 60 million folks and occupies Tibet, Nazi Germany only kilt 6 million. They got nuclear missiles pointed at us too, check it out.
By girl
March 27, 2008 4:13 PM | Link to this
I THINK THIS IS COOL. WOW!!!! IT IS A GOOD THING ha
By girl
March 27, 2008 4:13 PM | Link to this
I THINK THIS IS COOL. WOW!!!! IT IS A GOOD THING ha
By girl
March 27, 2008 4:13 PM | Link to this
I THINK THIS IS COOL. WOW!!!! IT IS A GOOD THING ha