Ever since it won the right to host the 2008 Olympics seven years ago, China has been hoping that the summer Games would substantially raise its international prestige. But there is now a growing danger that the opposite may happen.

This is because the government, which is investing billions of dollars in the Olympics facilities and doing everything possible to maintain political stability, has launched a crackdown on political activists and human-rights campaigners, resulting in bad publicity for the ruling Communist party.

Although opinion surveys show that China’s image was improving a few years ago, the situation was reversed as the government cracked down on dissent beginning in mid 2005. A UPI–Zogby poll in May 2007, for example, showed that 87 percent of Americans held an unfavourable opinion of the Chinese government.

Moreover, surveys in Russia, South Korea, Germany, France, India, Spain, Lebanon, Britain, Japan, and Turkey show that China’s image in 2007 was worse than in previous years in all of those countries.

Arrest figures are unavailable for 2007, but in 2006 there were more than twice as many arrests as the previous year for the political offence of endangering state security—a charge used to silence journalists, civil-rights lawyers, and advocates of religious freedom. In 2005, 296 individuals were arrested; the number jumped to 604 in 2006.

All signs are that the crackdown is continuing and, in fact, intensifying. At the end of last year, Chinese police seized a leading human-rights advocate, 34-year-old Hu Jia, from his Beijing home. On January 28, he was arrested and charged with “inciting subversion of state power”. Because “state secrets” are said to be involved, the trial will be closed and Hu will probably receive a stiff prison term.

Hu’s arrest has led to an outcry outside China. The U.S. State Department has raised the case with China. The European Parliament has approved a resolution condemning his arrest and calling on China “not to use the Olympic Games as a pretext to arrest and illegally detain and imprison dissidents, journalists, and human-rights activists who either report on or demonstrate against human-rights abuses.”

A month before he was detained, Hu took part via webcam in a European Parliament hearing and criticized China’s handling of the preparation for the Olympic Games. He reportedly said it was “ironic that one of the people in charge of organizing the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human-rights violations.”

There have been some signs of reform, such as a drop in the number of executions. China has also issued new rules governing organ transplants to curb widespread abuses.

Although these steps are welcome, in overall terms, China has moved backward. The arrest of Hu is particularly deplorable. He was an early AIDS and environmental activist but in recent years has been functioning as a one-man human-rights commission, drawing attention to such people as the blind, self-taught legal activist Chen Guangcheng, now serving a four-year prison term; the civil-rights lawyer Guo Feixiong, now serving a five-year term; and the crusading defence lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been repeatedly detained.

When the case of Hu was brought up, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu responded: “Chinese people know best about China’s human-rights situation.” It is certainly true that things used to be much worse during the Maoist period. The government now no longer intrudes into the largest areas of people’s private lives. But the situation is still deplorable.

If China wants to show the world that it is serious about improvements, Beijing should ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed 10 years ago. That would send a message to its own people that it truly respects human rights.