Media at Full Boil Over China Restrictions

As the Beijing Games draw near, journalists are worrying about the Chinese government's handling of a swarm of international reporters in an otherwise heavily censored society. Der Spiegel compiles commentaries from varying German sources, all of which agree that the decision to award China the 2008 Olympics was misguided at best.

“The Olympics cannot be held in a country ruled by a dictatorship without having to play by its rules,” one paper argues. “They are only doing what authoritarian and dictatorial regimes always do,” comments another paper. “No one can really be unclear about the true character of the Chinese system of rule." (More China stories.)