When Steven Spielberg pulled out of involvement in the Beijing Games because China hasn't done more to stop the Darfur conflict, all eyes turned to the foreign protest groups that may try to grab a chunk of the Olympics spotlight in August. The usual suspects are many -- from human rights and freedom-of-the-press advocates to Free Tibet activists, from Darfur and Burma protestors to supporters of the banned Falungong religious sect. How are Chinese authorities likely to handle them, both physically and in terms of public relations? Will we see a whack-a-mole series of protests and suppression? I recently asked Neal Beatty, general manager of the newly opened Beijing office of Control Risks, an international risk consultancy, for his take.  Excerpts:

       Liu: Are Chinese authorities unprepared for the number of foreigners intending to come to Beijing and protest under the spotlight of the Summer Games?
       Beatty: Authorities are certainly aware of the risk, having witnessed two such protests [by activists from] Free Tibet groups at the Great Wall and Reporters Without Borders in downtown Beijing in August 2007. But they have relatively little first-hand knowledge of the foreign groups that might turn up in Beijing (and little experience of their modus operandi). They are more experienced and adept in dealing with local protestors and petitioners.

        Q: Could  Beijing be underestimating the problem?
        A:  I don't think there's much risk of them being under-prepared for or insufficiently aware of the risk of foreign protesters. On the contrary this is probably high on their list of concerns. Their problem will not be underestimating the problem, but struggling to deal with it appropriately. Handling foreign sources of protest will be as much an exercise in PR and media skills as in policing skills, and this is not something the local security forces are very experienced in. Having said that, their approach to handling certain forms of unrest and protest has become far more sophisticated and nuanced in recent years: while forceful suppression remains the fallback - even the default in rural areas - authorities are more familiar now with managing and containing as well as simply crushing protests. Recent examples of this include the relative restraint with which authorities in Shanghai have had to deal with the Maglev protests, and with which their counterparts in Xiamen have [handled unrest] there against the PX chemical plant.

        Q: Could protests be mishandled, or get more attention than authorities want?
        A: With around 25,000 international journalists expected to be in and around Beijing in August, it wouldn't take too much to turn a small protest into headline news. The big question is how authorities will react. Their [reported] heavy-handedness in dealing with alleged drug dealers in Sanlitun in September last year was not a positive PR moment. Although the central government will want any protests to be handled in a sensitive manner, the risk is that a low-level official or security guard takes matters into their own hands and the results are all over the press.
         It is unlikely that any large-scale incidents will occur. There is a high likelihood the government will face some bad press: they won't be able to stop some protests taking place, and even minor incidents, scuffles or suppression seem bound to feed headlines because many journalists will be on the lookout to write just such a story and are unlikely to be completely without material. The main risk is of 'individual error' under pressure by officers on the ground causing something to get out of hand. This is mitigated by the fact that they are strongly inclined to escalate any decisions up the chain of command rather than take any major action on their own initiative; however, the flipside of this is that this can slow down their response to fast-moving incidents unfolding.

         Q: Do you agree with analysts who say this could lead to a public-relations disaster? 
         A: On balance, although it goes against what we know about the security forces, we shouldn't underestimate the authorities' ability to adapt. Senior personnel facing the dilemma described above will be only too aware of the danger of a PR disaster. While maintaining order will be priority number one, we should not assume that they are incapable of allowing protests to take place or policing them with restraint, where they see the danger of a damaging incident if they intervene too strongly. Again, this brings us back to the risk highlighted above - whether this policy will feed down to the officers and guards on the ground, whose instinctive approach will be less sophisticated.
 
          Q: What groups are likely to be trying to conduct protests?
          A: There are a wide range of groups that have an issue with China and may use the Games as a backdrop to protest their cause - [those involved with] Darfur, Tibet, Falungong, human rights, press freedoms, Burma, animal rights, etc. The torch relay may well give us a better picture of some of the groups likely to target the Games. Commercial sponsors may also become a target for protest, in an effort to have them put pressure on the government on these issues.  If we see some of these groups cooperating, that would be an even bigger concern for the government. It would seem likely that Falungong [supporters] would get different treatment to most of these other groups.
 
          Q: authorities say terrorism is their top concern. How's their preparedness against Games-related terrorist threats?
          A: Authorities will be well prepared for terrorist activity, but the risk is still viewed as low at present. They have to - and do - take the terrorist threat seriously because an event like this is such an obvious potential target; experience elsewhere in the world shows how difficult (read 'near impossible') it is to prevent an attack being carried out if enough people or groups are determined and capable....Some minor attack by an individual or small group is possible - the kind of thing we see dozens of around the country each year - but here we're talking more about criminal rather than terrorist acts. The latter is far less likely; we do not really consider there to be any known, active, domestic terrorist organizations operating in China (this does take into account Xinjiang groups). We also consider the threat from international Islamist extremist terrorist groups to be low at present.
 
         Q: Do you see signs of tightening security in Beijing. If so, what precisely?
         A: Nothing too obvious as yet apart from extra numbers of closed-circuit cameras on streets and a baggage x-ray machine recently installed at Dongzhimen underground station.
 
         Q: Foreigners in Beijing report being asked more often to show their passports and visas as part of a pre-Olympics clean-up; some have been deported for over-staying their visas.  Who, precisely, are authorities looking for?
         A: The authorities had launched a recent crackdown on people overstaying their visas or being in China on the incorrect visa. At around the same time, there were unconfirmed reports of a list of "persona non grata" that the authorities had issued in order to prevent those who might cause trouble from being in Beijing in August. Whether the two are directly linked is unclear. The most important thing to remember is that nothing will be allowed to pose a threat to the Games. Authorities will take all possible measures to ensure that anyone posing a threat to the Games is identified and prevented from being in Beijing at that time.