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BEIJING—The Paralympic Games began Sunday in Beijing, a
day after China staged a lavish opening ceremony for an
event it sees as another chance to cement its role as a
global player to an international audience.
Thousands of cheerleaders and dancers in puffy,
rainbow-colored suits performed a dance routine in the
center of the field at the National Stadium on Saturday
before athletes from 148 countries were introduced. The
crowd cheered and waved flags as China’s Communist Party
leaders and foreign dignitaries looked on.
The
guest list included Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, German President Horst Koehler and South
Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo.
Earlier
Saturday, they shook hands and posed for photos with
Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of the
People, the seat of China’s legislature in the heart of
Beijing. Hu gave a brief speech and toasted the Games.
“Caring
for the disabled is an important symbol for social
civilization and progress,” Hu said before raising his
glass.
“China’s
people and government have always attached great
importance to the cause of the disabled,” he said in
remarks televised on state television. “We insist on
putting people first, carrying forward a humanitarian
spirit and advocating equality and opposing
discrimination.”
Opening
just two weeks after the Beijing Olympics ended, the
Paralympics are designed to be a parallel games for
athletes with a wide range of physical disabilities.
Some
4,000-plus athletes will use many of the same Olympic
venues over the next 10 days, with 148 countries
represented and 472 medal events contested—170 more than
the Olympics.
Hosting
the Olympics and the Paralympics is a source of national
pride for China and a way to showcase the country on the
international stage.
The
August 8-to-24 Olympics was overshadowed at times by
human-rights and censorship disputes surrounding the
event. China is keen to use the Paralympics to
underscore what it says it has done for the country’s 83
million disabled citizens.
Liu Qi,
the president of the Beijing Olympic organizing
committee, hailed the Games as “a grand gathering for
people with a disability from across the globe.”
“It
educates people to the power of love, and encourages
people to devote more understanding, respect and support
to people with a disability,” Liu said at the opening
ceremony.
Performances also included a song by a blind singer and
dances by an 11-year-old ballet student who lost her
left leg in China’s massive May earthquake.
The
athlete’s parade was briefly disrupted when a woman
walked onto the field of the stadium and tried to strip
off her clothes, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Staff stopped the woman and later persuaded her to
leave, the report said.
Xinhua
said Beijing used much of its $100-million budget for
the Paralympics to improve handicapped facilities in
competition venues, airports, the public traffic system,
hotels, hospitals and tourist attractions like the Great
Wall and the Forbidden City.
But
China has also had a contentious history with dealing
with its disabled population.
The
government has long advocated sterilizing mentally
handicapped people. In the early 1990s a draft law was
presented to the legislature to reduce the number of
disabled through abortion and sterilization, a move that
unleashed international criticism.
In 1994
China ratified a law calling for the abortion of fetuses
carrying hereditary diseases and restrictions on
marriages among people suffering mental problems or
contagious diseases.
More
recently, Beijing Olympic organizers issued an apology
in June for clumsy stereotypes used to describe disabled
athletes in an English-language manual compiled for
thousands of volunteers. (AP) |
