This Week in China

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With just over three weeks remaining before the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics, Chinese officials are making a final push to clean up the streets and ramp up security. Hundreds of police checkpoints have been set up in Beijing, and police are offering rewards of up to 500,000 yuan ($73,150) for tip-offs to “major security threats.”

Not everyone is pleased with the new measures. Journalists say the controls compromise promised press freedoms, and the new checkpoints have caused massive traffic jams in Beijing. For their part, officials have urged local governments to be more responsive to people’s complaints, especially after violent protests brought 30,000 residents to the streets of Weng’an.

More Olympics

One month, 10,000 soldiers and volunteers, and hundreds of fishing boats later, the algae has been cleared from China’s Olympic sailing lake.

Bad weather forecast for the Opening Ceremonies? No problem.

Specators planning to bring banners to Beijing should leave them at home.

Non-Olympic sponsors are seeing their ads in Beijing disappear.

Politics

Beijing vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe for President Robert Mugabe’s rigged re-election, and “expressed concern” for the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide.

At least 10 parents of children killed in a collapsed school building during the May earthquake have been detained after protesting local government offices. The parents had refused to accept a payout of 100,000 yuan ($14,600) in return for waiving their right to sue over allegations of shoddy school construction.

Economy

China’s trade surplus fell almost 12 percent, thanks to a slowdown in exports caused by the lagging U.S. economy.

InBev’s acquisition of Anheuser-Busch means the Belgian brewer will no longer play catch up in China.

Environment

Experts say a $25 billion scheme to divert water from southern rivers to supply Beijing for the Olympics is a recipe for environmental calamity.

Environmental groups ought to focus their pressure less on Beijing and more on local governments, Bradford Plumer writes in The New Republic.

Technology

Having long banned subversive Web sites and blocked suspicious users, Communist Party officals are launching a more proactive propaganda battle on the Internet.

Taiwan

Five former ministers of ex-president Chen Shui-bian have been indicted on corruption charges.

Nearly a week after local flights began between Taipei and the mainland, officials are planning a joint mass wedding ceremony featuring couples from both Taiwan and China.

China Moments: Animals!

China is the largest importer of chicken feet in the world.

The Beijing Catering Trade Association has banned dog meat during the Olmypics to avoid offending the sensibilities of foreign visitors.

Officials have been rounding up stray dogs and cats by the hundreds in an effort to beautify Beijing streets for the games. Where do the animals go? At least 250 have found refuge with Grandma Ding.