Word: relaying
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Their presence has only exacerbated the protests that surround the relay, says Steve Tsang, a China specialist at Oxford University. "It is very much self-inflicted damage to China's position in the international community," he says. "In any event you'd have protests ... but the scale became much bigger when interest groups knew beforehand that they would be guaranteed prime-time television coverage. What was the Chinese government thinking? How could it send the People's Armed Police to beat up protesters, even push around foreign celebrities holding the torch, and not attract even more attention...
...Wednesday, the route of the torch relay was shortened and changed as San Francisco authorities moved to head off any confrontation between pro-China and anti-China crowds. The venue of the closing ceremony for the run was also changed. San Francisco has some experience with dealing with Beijing's foes: the Chinese consulate in the city often sees protests by North Korean refugees and the Falun Gong spiritual movement. But the scale of Wednesday's events is huge: Tibetan activists hung a banner from the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, and thousands attended a vigil...
...More than 3,000 French police and security forces formed what was touted as a "hermetic bubble" to protect torch carriers from any intrusion, but the relay came under immediate pressure from well-organized protesters. Just minutes after the 17-mile relay began at the Eiffel Tower, demonstrators carrying Tibetan flags and chanting anti-Chinese slogans moved in so tightly around the torch that officials took it into a bus for protection. Its flame was ultimately extinguished at least twice for what French officials called "technical reasons." Efforts by police to back activists away from the Olympic cortege at times...
...relay was eventually cut short, as the flame couldn't hold up against the determination of the demonstrators drawn to it. Hundreds of other activists gathered at the Trocadero esplanade across from the Eiffel Tower to show their support for the Tibetan people during a day of events that was to wrap up with concerts in the evening. Activists in Paris, like their peers in London the previous day, turned an event intended to highlight China's growing political and economic prowess into a police-harnessed reflection of how China treats dissent...
...Chinese government would agree that it's shameful, but not in where the blame lies. Though China has remained fairly tight-lipped in the wake of the London and Paris relay fiascos, it earlier denounced efforts by Menard and fellow activists on March 25 to disrupt the lighting of the torch in Greece in March. At that time, the spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, said that "any act to disrupt the Olympic torch relay is shameful and unpopular." He also warned "that competent authorities in countries through which the torch relay will pass have the obligation...