Dogs killed for Beijing’s Olympic bid

Back to the China: Hell On Earth Page

Damien McElroy In Beijing
Thursday, 12th July 2001

SHOPPERS and dog owners found out the hard way yesterday that Beijing’s city fathers are pulling out all the stops to stage the Olympics in 2008.

City officials are rounding up and exterminating dogs and closing down local vegetable markets to ensure that no unsavoury image of the Chinese capital is transmitted in the run-up to tomorrow’s decision.

Since the final push for the Games was launched, police have stepped up patrols that seize dogs from owners. Often the animals have to be wrested from their owners’ arms before being taken to pounds where they are put down.

Sometimes the dogs are thrown into a sack by the inspection squad and bludgeoned to death before the horrified owners’ eyes.

The special emphasis on dogs came after the Chinese decided Beijing’s relative lack of dogs was an advantage over Paris - known for its mess-strewn pavements and canines with attitude - that should be exploited.

"It’s plain to see that wild dogs and mad dogs have become a potential drag on Paris’s bid to host the Olympics," the official Liberation Daily newspaper said in an article headlined: "Mad dogs run wild in the street. Paris must handle its dogs before hosting the games."

Police stuffed letterboxes with pamphlets warning residents to get rid of all unregistered dogs. As the cost of registration is £400 - almost half the average annual wage in the city - this applied to the vast majority of the city’s pets.

Owners have dubbed the campaign, the "no sunshine for dogs" crackdown - most are too afraid to exercise their dogs outside until the vote tomorrow.

One dog owner, Wang Liqun, said: "They’ve essentially taken away the right of ordinary working people to keep dogs. It’s like they want to annihilate them altogether."

Meanwhile, other Beijing residents are having trouble finding a market still open to buy food for their evening meal.

A housewife in Sanlitun district reeled off a list of open-air markets within walking distance that had been closed. She said: "I don’t know where to go to get my food."

The lunacy of closing the markets where Beijing residents pick up their daily provisions is not out of the ordinary in China. Special events are always preceded by crackdowns in which thousands of small businesses are summarily closed.

Proponents of the Chinese bid claim awarding China the Games would put pressure on the Communist Party to treat the people more like "normal" countries treat their citizens.

"Far from condoning repressive policies, a victory for Beijing presents an enormous challenge for China to behave like a good international citizen," an editorial in an Australian newspaper said yesterday.

It is a proposition that looks tortured compared to the behaviour that the bid for the Olympics is drawing from officialdom. Such flights of fantasy have, however, made Beijing the favourite to pip Paris or Toronto when the 120 delegates to the International Olympic Committee vote tomorrow.