Editorial: Beijing attempts to trick the world

Published 8:44 am Friday, August 15, 2008

What message is Beijing sending to the world?

Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke is the perfect cover girl for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

She is cute, adorable — and fake!

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Miaoke, who appeared to have sung “Ode to the Motherland” during the Opening Ceremonies, was really just lip-synching the song. It was actually sung by 7-year-old Yang Peiyi.

Beijing misled a worldwide TV audience. Why didn’t Peiyi sing the song herself?

According to Chen Qigang, the musical director for the show, “It was for the national interest.”

Huh? The national interest is to fool the people. Smoke and mirrors is what China has shown the world on the biggest stage they could have.

He also said: ‘’The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression. Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in the aspect of voice, Yang Peiyi is flawless, in each member of our team’s view.’’

East meets West. It was China being a bully again.

We feel bad for these two young girls because they just happened to get in the way of China’s public-relations machine.

Miaoke looked the part of what China wanted the world to see and Qigang sounded the part. Did the Chinese officials deem the singer not pretty enough?

If you go to the 2008 Olympic Web site it states on the top of the home page the theme of “One World, One Dream.” It really should read “One Country, One Way.”

Air pollution, human rights, and genocide have taken center stage at this Olympiad after China’s stubbornness led to blocking free speech by revoking visas and controlling Internet access.

Joey Cheek, the 2006 Olympic gold medalist in speed skating, had his visa revoked, stopping him from supporting Team Darfur — a team he helped co-found. Cheek is the Olympian who donated his winnings of $25,000 to a charity helping the people of Darfur. His Team Darfur is an organization that draws attention to the children and people suffering genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

China needs to add one more word to the original Olympic statement of Citius, Altius, and Fortius, which means Faster, Higher, Stronger, and that word would be “Better.”