China allows for political protests in certain areas

For the first time ever, China is allowing political protests — and during the Olympics. I’m sure a lot of people heard the announcement a few days ago that China is allowing political protests during the Olympics, but only in three designated areas. There are also further restrictions on protests. You must register five days in advance with the Chinese government and tell them about the nature and size of your protest. They must approve of your protest before you can protest.

I find this all very entertaining. Its funny that the government must approve of your protest before you can protest. I mean, isn’t the reason you are protesting because you are unhappy with the government’s policy? These protest restrictions makes this allowing protests gesture little more than a goodwill move towards foreign countries. It is not a step towards freedom of expression.

Many people are also afraid that government officials will be keeping track of protesters so they can make arrests after the Olympics and this “free protesting” period is over. I doubt this will happen either. There are simply too many people to keep track of in these things and all the Beijing security forces are already up to their ears in terms of things to do. Since all these activities have to be approved by the government first, I doubt there will be anything serious. Since the protests are going to be restricted to three parks and most people here are just here to watch the games, I doubt they’ll get much attention and I doubt the news will cover them much. It was probably the Chinese government’s intention for them just to be kind of in the background and not draw much attention. There’s not going to be much meaningful protests anyways since any protest deemed “unhealthy for Chinese nationalism(Tibet, liberty agendas, etc)” will not be approved by the Chinese government. So basically you going to see a lot of protesters protest about stuff no one really cares about.