Olympic torch welcome but officials reject politics

Beijing will host the next Summer Games and it has got approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to start negotiating the route for the torch, bringing China closer to involving political rival Taiwan. During a presentation to IOC members in Turin, Italy Thursday, Beijing organizing committee chief Liu Qi said the proposed torch route covers 28 foreign cities and 70 in China.

IOC approval, given earlier this week ahead of the Turin Winter Games, gives Beijing the right to negotiate with foreign Olympic committees, officials with the IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games (BOCOG), said.

The approval adds to quickening preparations for the Beijing Games.

Liu and other officials with the BOCOG briefed IOC members on the city’s progress, covering everything from transport to security preparations.

IOC officials were generally effusive in their praise.

“We have no doubt that BOCOG will deliver in a splendid way,” IOC President Jacques Rogge said following Beijing’s presentation.

But Beijing’s torch relay plans also threaten to inject politics into an Olympic ritual already fraught with difficulties.

Among the stops Beijing proposed to the IOC last fall are Tibet, which Beijing annexed in 1950, and Taiwan, a democratically run island that China claims as its

China plans to bring the Olympic relay torch up to the Mt. Everest, the world’s highest mountain, in Tibet.

Beijing also obviously aims to create an impression about relations across the Taiwan Strait it wants to depict for the international community.

BOCOG will set up a torch relay team and make contact with other Olympic committees on the proposed torch route this year, BOCOG vice president Jiang Xiaoyu said.

Neither he nor another BOCOG official would say whether Beijing would approach Taiwan’s Olympic committee, which is officially called Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee.

Taiwan has resisted even symbolic overtures from Beijing, including a proffered gift of two pandas, fearing they would be tools used by China for political gains or sovereignty claims over Taiwan.

Chen Yun-ming, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan panel, said Chinese sports officials have not yet contacted their counterparts in Taiwan.

But he said that there is no change in the principle set by Taipei that the torch must either enter Taiwan from or leave the island for a city outside China and Hong Kong.

This is designed to prevent Beijing from creating an impression that Taiwan is part of China, analysts said.

The best arrangement is to let the torch into Taiwan from a Southeast Asian nation and then out to Hong Kong from Taiwan, they said.

The torch relay has been plagued with troubles in recent years, from excessively grandiose routes to being targeted by political and environmental protesters this year.

The torch relay was rerouted for at least the third time Thursday to avoid protesters. In response, IOC members have suggested that the relay process may have to be reviewed after the Turin Games.

One no-go for the 2008 torch relay would be cities bidding for the 2016 Games, said Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director for the Olympics.

Also making presentations to the IOC were Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Games, and 2012 host London.

John Furlong, head of Vancouver’s organizing committee, said the recent change of governments in Canada — with the long-entrenched Liberal Party ousted by the conservatives — would not disrupt preparations in any way.

“We believe the new government will be hugely supportive,” Furlong said after his presentation to the IOC.

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