Beijing (AsiaNews) – Are the 2008 Olympic Games a showcase for the ambitions of China’s rulers or the starting point for improving the life of the population? For the China Labour Bullettin (CLB), a non-governmental publication that seeks to improve people’s lives, one way of finding out what the Olympics have in store is by examining recent actions by the Chinese government.

CLB director Hán Dōngfāng, who also founded China’s first non-party affiliated labour union, said that the “whole process of gaining, preparing for and hosting the Olympics has become highly politicized, and there is a danger that the government's mission to demonstrate its greatness through the Games could over-shadow and divert attention away from the problems the Chinese people have to contend with every day of their lives.”

Until now the Olympics have made some problems worse. Olympic venues and facilities are being built at a record-breaking pace, but this can only be done by armies of migrant labourers working in extremely hazardous conditions, usually without contract, work-related medical insurance, trade union representation or right to collective bargaining.

More generally the government has failed to exercise any proper supervision over what contractors do, except when something turns into a scandal like the Playfair 2008 report in June this year, which exposed the use of child labour at factories producing official Olympic merchandise, forcing the Beijing Organising Committee to revoke the license of one company and suspend three others. 

“Instead of merely punishing employers caught in the act, the government should give workers the power to protect their own interests by granting them the freedom to organise their own unions and the right to strike,” Mr Hán said.

But the government’s way of dealing with problems is tight censorship against any form of criticism and avoiding problems before they emerge.

On 29 June for example, more than 3,000 workers at the giant Shuangma Cement Plant in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, downed tools and went on strike to protest against the company's proposed severance package.  Management and local government responded by sealing off the town, surrounding the plant with police and removing all internet postings related to the dispute. 

Likewise when news emerged that employees with the Jinzhou bus company in Liaoning had gone on strike on 19 July, the authorities did not address the drivers' concerns but merely blocked all news related to the strike. 

No wonder that as we get closer to the Games, censorship has increased.

Chinese authorities have for instance warned Chinese journalists not to report "false" (i.e. bad) stories; they have also restricted their movements and shutdown critical blogs and websites. All this while, they have been telling foreign journalists that they will have unfettered access to all news stories in China during the run up to the Games.

Even the most innocuous criticism has been punished. At the end of July for example, two high school teachers in Hainan were given 15 days administrative detention for posting song lyrics critical of local officials.

For Mr Hán the first step to solving any problem is openness.

He noted that paying for the Games has left less money for education and public health care. In his opinion “we cannot ignore the fact that while the nation's capital city holds an international celebration of youth, physical strength and vitality, the health of the nation as a whole is in peril.”