Beneath the Olympic glitter, massive police presence highlights China's social tensions

A 100,000-strong security force of paramilitary police and troops, in addition to an even larger number of ordinary police, plainclothes agents and security guards, has been deployed in Beijing and other cities hosting events. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is determined to prevent protests by workers, housing right activists or separatists from Tibet or Xinjiang, which would disrupt their efforts to showcase China to the world.

The millions of urban poor and migrant workers living in shoddy dormitories were not compatible with the picture that the CCP wanted to present. Many were driven out of the capital prior to the Games by shutting down factories, construction sites and cheap accommodation. One million construction workers, who earned less than $3 a day and built the Olympic venues, are unable to watch the Games. Thousands of undesirables, including the homeless, prostitutes and alleged drug users, were locked up in labour camps on the outskirts of Beijing in order to hide the dismal social reality of modern China.

Amnesty International reported that China had used its notorious re-education through labour campsa police power to detain people for up to four years without trialfor a clean up drive starting in May 2006. The targets included unlicensed taxi drivers and small businesses, many of them run by laid-off workers, as well as those involved in illegal leafleting, vagrancy and begging. In February 2007, anti-drug detention was extended from six months to a year to ensure that the streets were free of drug users during the Olympics.

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