PROTESTERS disrupting the Olympic torch relay have made an impact worldwide, but have missed the effect they are having on China's young people, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday.

They have aroused intense anti-foreigner feelings in young Chinese, who feel humiliated and have taken to venting their anger on the Internet.

Because their online postings are in Chinese, he said, Westerners have failed to hoist in the level of anger and the danger that this episode will have consequences well beyond the Beijing Olympic Games.

Thousands of Chinese have signed online petitions pledging to 'protect' the flame, and there are calls to boycott French products by brands such as L'Oreal and Louis Vuitton.

Beijing-based event manager Zhao Guofu, 29, spoke for many when he said: 'To us, the Olympics is a grand, historic event for China. These people spoiling the torch relay are just trying to beat China down.'

Mr Zhao, who has been posting angry messages online, added: 'Even ordinary Chinese who wouldn't usually be interested in politics are now asking, 'Why is China being treated like this?'

In Singapore, Mr Lee said the Olympic Games are China's 'coming-out party', meant to showcase the country's progress and opening up to the world.

Beijing meant the international torch relay to be a 'journey of harmony', but its opponents have seized the opportunity to disrupt the relay with protests, scuffles and attempts to douse the flame.

All this has been beamed live around the world, 'influencing public opinion against China and the Games', he said.
Mr Lee said the protests will have no impact on China's policy in Tibet or against dissidents.

'No government can give ground on any core issue under such public duress, whatever the merits of the argument,' he said at the London School of Economics (LSE) Asia Forum.

But what has happened is that the people of China now believe that the demonstrators want to inflict maximum humiliation on the country and its people, more than the Chinese government.

'The outrage in China, especially among the young, can be read on the flooded Internet bulletin boards, all carrying virulent anti-foreign sentiments.

'Pity they are in unintelligible Chinese ideographs. Were they in the English language, young Americans and Europeans would realise that these displays of contempt for China and things Chinese will have consequences in their lifetime, well beyond the Olympic Games,' he said.

His comments drew a rebuttal at the same forum from LSE professor of human rights Conor Gearty, who described the protests as part of the guarantee for human rights.

'I am proud of the chaos that surrounds the flame because protest is, to use the Prime Minister's own terms, the way we challenge great minds. It is a new way of revealing basic truths,' Professor Gearty said.

As the flame arrived in the Argentinian city of Buenos Aires yesterday, China assured the International Olympic Committee that it would increase security for the rest of the relay.

China has deployed a 'flame protection squad' made up of 70 members of its People's Armed Police to safeguard the fire for 24 hours a day.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on April 12, 2008

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