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Joanna Lumley complained on Channel 4 News that her peaceful protest on the day of Olympic torch relay in London was almost ignored by the media. On the other side, many Chinese students voiced the frustration of that their show of support, a pro-Olympic torch demonstration if you like, despite turning up in large numbers, was barely mentioned by BBC News 24, who broadcasted most part of the torch reply. It is understandable that stunts, especially violent stunts, always attract more media attention, however I do wonder whether those they tried to grab the torch, or throw themselves to the torch bearers, or ambush the torch with a fire extinguisher, were risking losing their case. Not only they overshadowed their colleagues who insisted on peaceful demonstration, some action, like the one happened in Paris during which several men charged from all directions, wave after wave, towards a disabled torch bearer sitting on a wheel chair in order to grab her torch (well before the flame lit up), did not do any good PR for the movement’s ‘non-violent’ image.

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Among many commentaries about what happened in Tibet and what would happen at Beijing Olympics, some groups advocate either boycotting Beijing Olympics altogether or at least the opening ceremony, or encouraging athletics openly demonstrate during the Games, wearing a Free Tibet t-shirt while competing for example. To see what kind of reaction their proposed action may get, one can do worse than checking the response from the eighty thousand or so Chinese students in the UK. Although most of them won’t hesitate to criticise Chinese government’s handling of events, such as a blind ban of the foreign media, many believe the western media are equally biased and untrustworthy. On the overseas Chinese discussion boards, there have been heated debate, mainly among overseas Chinese students themselves, about whether Tibetan are treated well enough, and how strained the relationship between Tibetan and Han-Chinese is, however most of the participants see Tibet as an integral part of China, many also accuse western media as being one-sided or even fabricating in reporting the violence in Tibet. A seven minute video posted onto YouTube (has been viewed near two million times) reflects the feeling shared by many Chinese students.

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Nancy Zhang wrote in Shanghai Daily, reacting to the Sunday Times’s report of some British schools’ unofficial policy of capping the number of pupils from China. She accused the school of deploying a policy that discriminates against Chinese students.

The Sunday Times reported that some private schools, including Wellington College in Berkshire, the Leys school in Cambridge and Brighton college, East Sussex, have decided to restrict their numbers of foreign pupils. The informal limit ranges from 8% to 20%. The schools argues that they must preserve the Britishness of the school, which was also expressed by some of the parents, according to the schools.

The numbers from mainland China have risen from a few hundred in 2000 to 2,345 this year. When added to pupils from Hong Kong, the total rises to 8,652, 40% of all foreign pupils.

UK schools discriminate against Chinese students, by Nancy Zhang:

Last month an article appeared in “The Sunday Times” about unofficial quotas some British schools have on the number of Chinese pupils they will admit.

This was preceded by another article the week before with the headline “Chinese students oust UK pupils from top universities.”

It seems there is a growing pattern in Western countries like the United Kingdom, where the Chinese in particular are seen to be infringing on that most valuable and socially crucial resource: education.

Ostensibly the schools claim these quotas are a practical issue of business-need. The schools mentioned were highly elite, private schools - traditionally a bastion of British life stretching back to the days of the empire.

The argument provided by the schools is that both foreign and British parents, their customers, come to these schools for a distinctly “British” education, so it is in the interests of both to keep numbers of Chinese below 10 percent and thus maintain their original character.

But I wonder if they would say the same if the incoming 10 percent of foreign students were white American or European. Or, on the other hand, if they would welcome a large number of legally British pupils who were ethnically Chinese.

Full article.