Based on the protests in Western countries that have accompanied the Long Olympic Torch March, the Chinese are worried that foreign protesters with a laundry list of complaints about Chinese domestic and foreign actions will embarrass China right at home. More reasons to protest seem to pop up.
I think the source of embarrasment is more likely to come from Chinese citizens expressing anger at Westerners over the climbing list of of subjects that could be targets of protest.
The French company Carrefour is bearing the brunt of recent protests in China:
"We want to let all foreigners know that China is very angry today. We have to let Chinese people in China know that we are united," a protester said as he was led to a police van.
Protesters also carried banners and chanted slogans at Carrefour stores in Changsha in central China, Fuzhou in the southeast, Chongqing in the southwest and Shenyang in the northeast, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported. It said hundreds of people demonstrated in Changsha and 400 were on hand in Fuzhou, but it gave no other details.
The protests occurred despite Beijing's efforts to discourage them and to calm anti-French sentiment.
Calls for boycotts of foreign companies have been deleted from Web sites. A top figure in the ruling Communist Party, Jia Qinglin, called Wednesday for Chinese to channel their "patriotic passion" into holding a successful Beijing Olympics in August.
Chinese emotions have run high since deadly anti-Chinese protests in Tibet in March.
Nationalists complain that foreign news reports about Tibet are biased and accuse foreigners of wanting to see the Himalayan territory split from China.
The Tibet protests were a propaganda disaster for Beijing, which wants the Olympics to showcase China as a stable, prosperous society.
And if the Chinese security forces treat foreign protesters with kid gloves while treating Chinese protesters more harshly when these Chinese protesters will see themselve as defending China's honor, will this undermine the government which increasingly relies on xenphobic nationalism as a replacement for communist fervor?
There could be quite the hangover after this coming out party.
