The James Logan Courier

By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

BEIJING — Nervous that troublemakers may slip across the border before the Olympic Games, China is making it harder for foreigners to obtain entry visas and halting public gatherings where embarrassing protests over Tibet might take place.

Authorities suspended a May 1-4 rock festival that's the biggest annual outdoor music event in China, saying the event could be dangerous, an organizer said Thursday.

Other commercial events also have been canceled in recent weeks, including a Celine Dion concert in Beijing and a pillow fight aimed at drawing shoppers to a mall.

Chinese authorities are in no mood for such parties. Unrest in Tibetan regions last month marked the biggest wave of ethnic disturbances in nearly two decades, sparking protests worldwide as the Olympic torch made its way around the globe this month.

On Thursday, the torch passed through Canberra, Australia, where police made seven arrests, and then it headed to Nagano, Japan, under heavy security.

Many Chinese watched angrily as protests bedeviled the torch relay earlier this month in England and France, seeing them as an attempt to humiliate China. With government approval, some Chinese have launched protests outside Chinese branches of French retailer Carrefour, voicing often-irate anti-Western sentiments.

In a sign of how volatile those nationalist sentiments have become, protesters at a Carrefour store in the Hunan Province city of Zhuzhou mobbed an American teacher last Sunday night, according to Steven Parker, the China field director for WorldTeach, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit that places volunteer teachers in developing nations.

"The volunteer managed to jump into a taxi and close the door, but the mob surrounded the taxi, trying to break in, tip the taxi over and smash the windows. The police were finally able to get the volunteer to a safe place," Parker explained in an e-mail to fellow volunteers that warned them to steer clear of protests.

The young American volunteer wasn't identified.


Tightened entry rules into China began a week or so ago and are to last through the Aug. 8-24 Summer Games. The new visa requirements have distressed foreign business owners and executives with operations on the mainland.

Chinese consulates abroad commonly granted multiple-entry visas but now are limiting most applicants to single- or double-entry visas, and only if travelers have air tickets and hotel bookings in hand.

"Business people need stability to operate, and the Hong Kong business community has been thrown into great turmoil as a result of the new and largely misunderstood visa policies," said Richard R. Vuylsteke, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, in a letter to a Chinese Foreign Ministry official. The letter was posted on the chamber's Web site.

A scholar in Hong Kong said the visa restrictions and the sudden cancellations of public events reveal China's nervousness in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

"The whole idea is, `Make sure that nothing goes wrong.' This is a paramount consideration, and they are willing to pay the price," said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong.

The founder and organizer of the Midi Festival, the suspended four-day rock event, said he'd invited 30 bands from the United States, Europe and Australia to perform along with 100 Chinese bands on six different stages at the Beijing festival.

"I think it's good for the Olympics and for China, but the government doesn't think so," said Zhang Fan, the organizer. "They think it's dangerous."

He said officials were particularly unhappy that Bjork, the Icelandic singer, shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of a concert in Shanghai on March 2.

Asked the reasons for the Midi cancellation, Zhang said: "First, it's Bjork. Second, it's Tibet, and third, it's the torch. Fourth, it's that a lot of Chinese people are angry."

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