Over the weekend the Beijing Olympic officials and the IOC called off their Saturday and Sunday press conferences.The official line was that there was no news, oh and they didn’t want to clash with Michael Phelps winning medals.Does this mean China is now kowtowing to the US? Surely not.It seems the IOC doesn’t consider stripping Sweden wrestler Ara Abrahamian of his bronze medal for spitting the dummy as newsworthy.The media believes the real reason is due to questioning on topics such as Tibet and Falun Gong at previous press conferences.China doesn’t like to talk about these subjects.Sport is meant to be independent of politics after all, but that ideal is just a fool’s paradise.The 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott and South Africa’s ban from world sport due to apartheid are just two examples of politics and sport being intertwined.Anyway, Tibet and Falun Gong are two of China’s own Five Forbidden Topics, while the Uighurs, Taiwan and dissidents round out the list.These topics are obviously complex, but briefly:

1. Tibet: The Dalai Lama currently lives in exile in Dharamsala, India, and wants China to grant Tibet autonomy. China has ruled Tibet since 1950 and says the Dalai Lama is a terrorist. There were much-publicised protests for Tibetan independence during the torch relay.
2. Falun Gong: A "religion" which began in 1992 and was banned by China in 1999. Falun Gong practitioners believe it is a science and through meditation try to practise truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. There are claims China tortures practitioners and harvests their organs.
3. Uighur’s: Turkic muslims living in Xinjiang province, China. Recently there have been bombings in Xinjiang, which have been linked to Uighur independence movements. Xinjiang has vast resources of water and petroleum, which China obviously wants to keep.
4. Taiwan: Also called the Republic of China, not to be confused with communist People’s Republic of China. The Taiwan Government believes mainland China and islands, including Taiwan, form the Republic of China, but since the Chinese Civil War in 1949 it has been forced on to the islands off mainland China.
5. Dissidents: Blacklisted Chinese exiles who, for one reason or another, have annoyed the Chinese Government.
I wonder if there will be any news today…