The Beijing Olympics will launch on Aug. 8, 2008, one year from today. At once a coming-out party for China and a source of great national pride, the games have also raised hopes that Beijing might honor its promises to allow unfettered press freedom and even permit greater freedom of speech for the Chinese people. But as we enter the home stretch before the games, the prospects for media and free expression reform are not good. This spring, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's Propaganda Administration Department announced a ban on, among other topics, discussing whether the media should be free. Franz Kafka would have smiled at this stunning act of auto-censorship, which means that Chinese citizens now can't even publicly argue in favor of a controlled press.

The recent discovery of hundreds of slave laborers working in feudal conditions in brick kilns prompted a national outcry in China - and an unusually forceful reaction from the central government. The Communist Party immediately dispatched tens of thousands of police to break up the ring, arrested hundreds, and inspired strongly worded editorials in such state organs as the People's Daily denouncing local officials' lapses. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao also weighed in, giving highly publicized orders to launch a "nationwide campaign" to eradicate slave labor.