An Update on China’s Public Relations Campaign

You never know when you may stumble across an article dealing with public relations. It may even be when you’re keeping up with your daily news. While perusing CNN.com, I found an article entitled “Monks protest upstages China’s PR tour.” Interested in the next phase of this continuing story, I read on.

As you all know, Beijing, China is host to the 2008 Summer Olympics. As mentioned earlier in the week, there has been a kink in China’s plan of making theirs the greatest Olympics ever. Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, has recently been experiencing pro-independence protests, starting out peacefully, but now moving to violent measures.

“The protests -- which began on the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising -- have threatened to overshadow Beijing's hosting of the Summer Olympic Games in August,” CNN.com states.

China’s PR professionals were hard at work trying to restore China’s image for the summer games.

“Beijing invited about two dozen international journalists to tour Tibet's capital, Lhasa, to show them the city is calm after recent anti-China protests.”

These same PR professionals had to use their crisis-management skills when they experienced a “public-relations roadblock” yesterday, March 27, during the tour. Thirty monks "’stormed into a briefing by a temple administrator to cause chaos.’" This protest is making news around the world; leaving some to wonder, is China as calm as they say?

Whether China’s public relations efforts will be effective is yet to be determined. The evaluation will occur this summer when Beijing opens their doors to visitors and competitors from all over the world


"Monks Protest Upstages China's PR Tour." CNN. 27 Mar. 2008. .
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/tibet/index.html