Only a few days before the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, Muslim terrorists attacked a Chinese police station killing 16 policemen. While the terrorist attack took place in a Northeastern Chinese city 2,500 miles from the Beijing Olympic Games, it still illustrates the serious security issues that China is facing in protecting the Olympic Games, tourists and athletes from political extremists and protesters who might want to use the stage of the Olympic Games to make some political statement.
It was during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Georgia that antiabortion clinic bomber and right wing political radical, Eric Rudolph, planted a field back bomb that killed two persons and wounded 111. It was only the actions of security guard hero, Richard Jewel, that helped to move the crowd away from this suspicious abandoned field pack that saved many lives and prevented many more deaths. China certainly wants to avoid any such events ruining their sponsorship of the Olympics and disgracing their nation.
China has offered two areas in which responsible persons may stage responsible political protests in Beijing provided that they have a government issued permit and approval and do not engage in violence or some other behavior disruptive of the Olympics and public order to help to satisfy the world community concerns that China should allow more political dissent, and to prevent some persons from using the Olympic Games itself as some stage for disruptive protests. There was an unsanctioned protest earlier today in Tienanmen Square, that was peaceful. But as the Olympics draw nearer, some appear to be using the Olympic Games as a means to generate more publicity for their pet political causes. Certainly the terrorist attack that killed 16 policemen is the worst example of political radicals using the publicity of the upcoming Olympics to get attention for their cause.
Despite a fairly rigid political system in China, the amount of computer use and trade with the world community has put many in China in touch with others around the world who sometimes have political agendas far beyond just seeking more democracy in China. Few in the Western world understand that China has had an ongoing battle with Al Qaeda attempting to establish itself in the heavily Muslim region near the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and former Soviet Republics in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. On February 5, an Al Qaeda sponsored bomb factory was raided by Chinese police in the Xinjiang region that included 22 improvised explosive devices similar to what have been used in Iraq by insurgents there and enough additional material to produce thousands more bombs was seized by Chinese police. 18 Al Qaeda backed terrorists were killed, and 17 more were captured.
After the end of the Afghan war with the Soviet occupation, Al Qaeda and other Muslim radicals increasingly sought to target China as a prime area to expand their influence. And in the largely Muslim region near the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, a flow of Uighur Muslim extremist fighters have been conducting a low level Islamic armed rebellion for at least two decades.
China will face many challenges in offering a safe 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Only last week some reporters were angered at some computer security measures taken by the Chinese government. Yet with the possibility that some radical organization like Al Qaeda could potentially stage some terrible event to disrupt the Olympics unless security is very tight, puts China in a difficult balancing act of providing adequate enough of security to ensure that the games are safe for the athletes and tourists, while not appearing as heavy handed to the Western World.
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