In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the papers were full of stories on human rights violations in China, but two months before the World Expo opens in Shanghai, the media is staying silent on the issue.

Amnesty say that no major campaigns are planned for the Shanghai Expo, which is expected to attract around 70 million visitors and cost more than the Beijing Olympics. It's not because human rights have dramatically improved in China, but because the Asian superpower is no longer a hot topic.

"The main reason that we really jumped on the issue during the Beijing Olympics was because China said the games would improve human rights in the country.” says Nicole Sprokel, Amnesty International's China spokesperson. “We started checking and found the claim to be far from the truth."

Letting it slide
Amnesty hasn't forgotten the human rights situation in China, but the organisation is instead opting to quietly lobby behind the scenes. In November, Amnesty called on Dutch politicians to pay particular attention to the human rights situation in China during the Shanghai Expo and GreenLeft MP Mariko Peters tabled a motion calling for the Dutch pavilion to host a critical exhibition. However, she doesn't know if anything has come of the motion and admits that politicians are letting the issue slide this time round.

Mariko Peters:

"It's true, there has been very little political action in connection with the Shanghai Expo, certainly nothing that would compare with the action in the run-up to the Beijing games. I don't have a good explanation for it. Maybe the issue has fallen by the wayside. There was a great deal of discussion during the games, but nothing really came of it. People ended up beating their heads against an intractable Chinese wall and forgot to refocus their energies on the World Expo. You have to try, even though you know that you'll end up beating her head against that same Chinese wall. I think in the end, persistence will be rewarded, especially in a country like China that is becoming more and more dependent on exports".

Indifference
Before the Beijing Olympics started, Dutch comedian Eric van Muiswinkel called on Dutch athletes to boycott the games, but he also ran into a wall, however, it was a Dutch wall of indifference.

Eric van Muiswinkel:

"At the time I thought I'd try and feed the discussion and, with Amnesty's help, give as much information as I possibly could. I thought people would see for themselves that it was an odd case.

It is impossible to believe that China would become more democratic; on the contrary, it became far more dangerous. Mainly for the Chinese themselves, but in the long term, for us as well. China exerts a lot of influence in Africa, everywhere really. But people slept through my wake-up call. People are extremely cynical. In the 1970s and 80s, when Amnesty really took off, the message was that this is important for everyone. But now, now no one really pays any attention to human rights".

"We just don't have the resources," explains a spokesperson for FNV International, the union division that has been working alongside unions in Hong Kong and China to improve working conditions in the 'world's factory'. "When does the expo begin?" asks the spokesperson.

A silence falls when I say that it starts on 1 May, International Labour Day. "That would be a good time to do something," he says. The union says it cannot do everything, but assures me, " Our Beijing Olympic campaign will get a follow-up during the London 2012 games".

It appears that the games didn't only exhaust Olympic athletes; they also wore out politicians, activists and human rights organisations in the Netherlands. And China's great lesson from the Beijing Olympics was that it should avoid the subject of human rights altogether.

UPDATE - Ms Peters has submitted written questions in parliament today over the issue. Her questions included whether human rights violations have actually taken place during the construction of the World Expo and whether the Dutch caretaker government can rule out whether such rights have been violated during the building of the Dutch pavilion.

Back in December 2009, Ms Peters proposed staging a side event involving critical Chinese artists in the Dutch pavilion. Her motion to set up such a side event was approved in December 2009. Today, she inquired how the Dutch government intends to implement the December motion and asks whether the side event will pay attention to the plight of Tibetans and Uighurs.