Central to all of the strange happenings at the Beijing Olympic Games is control. Chinese officials want to minimise anything that will affect the image presented to the Games’ 4 billion television viewers, but by doing so, have exposed themselves to enormous criticism for trying to present a falsely pristine occasion.

The rare outburst by Wang Wei matched the severe tone of the world’s media, which has been frustrated by China’s promises of media freedom while encountering continued internet censorship, internal blackouts on Chinese reporting, harassment, detention, obfuscation and, repeatedly, lies.