Chinese Olympic Propaganda

I have found the entire Olympic torch relay to be distasteful if I am honest, even more so when I read that the Olympic committee had gone so far as advising against such a tour, yet the Chinese had still gone ahead with it.

The Chinese / Tibetian issue will always be controversial and the Olympics being held in China give protesters an ideal window to make their feelings known. When you take this along with the terrible human rights record that China has, it does make them a very polarised choice for hosting the games this year.

However what has really annoyed me this morning is this - Torch reaches Everest peak.

Now, I consider myself privileged in that I have met and talked to a couple of people who have climbed Everest in the past five years. I went to a talk at the Royal Geographic Society a couple of years ago to hear one expedition talk about their experiences along with the issues they’d had whilst attempting to summit. Their honest stories about, despite being exceptionally fit and experienced mountaineers, struggling to put one foot in front of the other at such high altitude, having ice encrusted onto their oxygen mask and when climbing without supplementary oxygen being barely able to make a step every thirty seconds, really made me sit back in awe of their achievements.

So, it goes without saying that the video on the above link, which shows people almost speed walking up a mountain slope, with no oxygen masks or tanks, no ice picks to support themselves and generally looking clement weather (considering the area), is clearly a fake.

According to a couple of the climbing websites that I occasionally use, some Chinese did summit this week, but there is no way that the video they have released is genuine. There is no perspective to where they are whatsoever. As for lighting a torch on the summit, well please. Don’t even get me started on why nobody is out of breath.

It is a pity that some countries won’t boycott the Olympics as a protest against the actions of China in general, I doubt that people won’t not watch coverage on the TV and that after the fact, China will be able to declare everything they have done as being a great success and nothing will change with regards to how they treat their citizens.