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February 4, 2008

Doesn't the New York Times editorial board know this villainous slander makes JingJing(tm) a Sad Panda?

Improving its human rights record isn’t China’s only unmet commitment to the International Olympic Committee. It also promised to improve air quality. Now athletes and their coaches are figuring out how to spend as little time as possible in China’s smog-swamped capital, where they may need masks to breathe.

Beijing also made empty commitments about press freedoms. China has failed to lift fully the reporting restrictions on foreign journalists, including limits on their ability to move freely about the country. Local journalists are as restricted as ever. There has also been increased censorship of the Internet.

The Olympic Committee has not made public its formal contract with Beijing. But a new book called “China’s Great Leap,” edited by Minky Worden, media director for Human Rights Watch, reports that Beijing sought to strengthen its bid by telling the committee — specifically — that awarding it the Games would facilitate human rights progress.

With the Games approaching, China has instead expanded its crackdown on dissidents, tightened controls over nongovernmental organizations and rounded up “undesirables,” such as migrants and the mentally ill.

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