The Silence is Deafening

This morning the BBC came out with a story saying that one of the Southern Chinese companies admitted to using child labour, but not to manufacture Beijing Olympics merchandise.

Calls all day to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) were unanswered. Marketing director Chen Feng had said yesterday he would meet with the four companies accused of forcing children as young as 12 to work 12 hours a day and not paid overtime. But neither he nor his assistant were in the office to confirm or deny the BBC's article.

Almost as if to distract from the controversy, BOCOG held a feel-good press conference this afternoon on relations between China and Russia. Conveniently no BOCOG officials were available to address the child labour issue.

The longer BOCOG delays making a statement, the more one wonders what's really going on.

And with the Chinese government so anxious to promote a positive image of its country, the silence is almost deafening.