Introduction


Migrant workers at the construction site of Beijing’s new National Stadium, also known as “the Bird’s Nest,” where the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games will take place on August 8, 2008. The stadium was designed by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, in co
"We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."
— Wang Wei, a vice president of the Beijing organizing committee, at a press conference on July 12, 2001, the day before the International Olympic Committee named the city as host.

If you are one of the estimated 25,000 journalists planning to travel to China to cover the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, this guide is for you. It provides essential background information and concrete suggestions for how to address many of the challenges you can face as a working journalist in China. The guide also highlights Olympics-specific and broader human rights concerns that likely will be important stories during your stay.

Even though you will be in China to cover the Olympics—the ultimate choreographed event—the Chinese government’s penchant for control makes even ostensibly safe environments unpredictable. Full media freedom for visiting international journalists was a pillar of Beijing’s Olympic bid, but well before the Games launch, this pledge has already been violated.

Sports journalists who may be unaccustomed to government monitoring should know that even the most basic reporting activities may be of interest to the Chinese government. Chinese officials do not distinguish sports journalists from editorial writers or foreign correspondents and your judgment of what constitutes a story won’t be theirs. You will want to plan and act accordingly.

This guide spells out your rights as a visiting journalist in China—but also the risks you face, and the risks your Chinese contacts will face once the Beijing Games are over and you are back home. You will find here practical information on a range of subjects, from what documents to carry with you to how to identify public security officials. You will find not only general safety tips but very specific suggestions on how to evade online censorship and what to do if you are detained. You will also find a concise summary of human rights conditions in China and ideas for stories that will give your readers a glimpse of the real China behind the curtain of the Olympic extravaganza.

We are grateful for the assistance of the Committee to Protect Journalists in preparing this guide, which incorporates material from Falling Short: As the 2008 Olympics Approach, China Falters on Press Freedom, a special CPJ report first published in August 2007 and revised in June 2008. We also wish to thank Rebecca MacKinnon for her wise counsel on Internet censorship and secure communications.

We hope this guide—and the cautions it sets out—will be a useful companion on your reporting trip to China.