Tank you, Beijing is secure

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BEIJING -- The buses pulled up, as usual, Tuesday morning to the entrance of the Main Press Center. It was a good-weather day in Beijing. Still warm, but not overwhelming. Even a hint of blue sky.

The routine had set in. Step off the bus and go to work.

And then, there it was. The tank. Big as life. Parked right near the entry. Since this wasn’t L.A., where you’d just shrug and assume it was a movie prop, it got your attention real fast.

There were several ways to take this.

• There was a security crisis.
• The Chinese really, really didn’t like the stories we were writing.
• The tank driver couldn’t find a parking place anywhere else.

The matter was taken up by the world’s media, most of whom had walked by on their way to work, at the daily joint briefing of the International Olympic Committee and the Chinese Organizing Committee. The first question could be summed up by: ‘Is something big happening? Are we in danger here?’

Wang Wei of BOCOG clearly hadn’t come in that entrance and clearly didn’t understand that the reporter asking the question was serious. It’s not every day that you walk past a tank on your way to work, after all.

Wang said there was no threat and said that, because of the stabbing death of the U.S. volleyball coach’s father-in-law, security had been increased in general.

Later, when he understood that, yes, there actually was a tank at the MPC entrance, he said, ‘I’m not privy to who deployed this, but we must be protective.’

Then he wandered one sentence too long.

‘I don’t think this is surprising in Beijing.’

The poor guy got blindsided on this one. Another of Wang’s reactions to it was, ‘They should not create an inconvenience for the media.’

It hadn’t. Just a big photo op.

-- Bill Dwyre

* Updated with tank still at the MPC as of 7 p.m. Beijing time.