How the Beijing authorities have even silenced the taxi drivers for the Olympics

Communist Party officials advise that silence is the best policy when picking up a foreign fare but if drivers are unable to avoid being drawn into chit-chat, they must aim to steer the conversation away from ‘delicate’ subjects (human rights and smog) and stick to ‘the goods’ (the Olympics, the government and Beijing).

There must be no debate.

Even the taxi drivers in Beijing have been told what they can and cannot talk about

It is all part of the sterilisation of the city: anything or anyone who risks presenting a negative image or causing any embarrassment has been silenced, tidied up, covered over, or expunged with stormtrooper zeal.

On Friday morning, attempting to navigate his way around Tiananmen Square #– closed presumably for security reasons – our taxi driver sighed heavily, slapped his dashboard in despair and muttered something obscene in Mandarin.

This seemed a good time to test him on ‘the goods’.

‘My friend would like to know if you are already fed up with the Olympics?’ inquired our translator.

Like all taxi drivers in the city he was wearing a brand new short sleeve yellow shirt and blue tie. If caught wearing anything else he faces a 200 yuan (£15) fine.

He quickly regained his composure and grinned into his rear view mirror. ‘Of course not,’ he replied, apparently without a scintilla of sarcasm. ‘I cannot wait and I know China will do so well.’

China has suffered years of humiliation at the hands of foreigners and it is damned if it will let them spoil the party at so crucial a juncture.

The Olympics represent its coming-out party as an economic global superpower – and it knows its every move over the next fortnight will be scrutinised as closely as a debutante’s frock at the grandest society ball.

It does not want TV cameras gleefully highlighting the slum housing, for instance, on the route from the airport, so it has covered it up with gigantic billboards proclaiming its Olympic slogan – ‘One World, One Dream’.

A woman living in a ramshackle house who scraped a living selling nuts wasn’t even that lucky. Her dwelling was deemed an eyesore and summarily demolished.

Elsewhere, some businesses whose misfortune it has been to overlook the Olympic marathon route have found themselves without power. The cables outside their offices were torn down for ‘aesthetic’ reasons.

‘There was no forewarning,’ explained one businessman. ‘Sometimes we do get to learn beforehand about these things, sometimes there is an announcement on the day but usually we don’t know about it until after it has happened.’

And it is not just certain buildings that have been declared unsightly. Prostitutes, beggars, migrant workers and even old women who collect discarded plastic bottles have been told to make themselves scarce for the duration of the Games.

They have had little choice but to comply – in addition to the 125,000 police and soldiers on the streets, there are 50,000 security guards and a further 250,000 ‘security volunteers’, whose job it is to report suspicious behaviour.

In the unlikely event that they miss anything, the authorities can always rely on the 300,000 closed-circuit video cameras that have been installed around streets of Beijing.

Hidden microphones are also in place to pick up the conversations of unsuspecting passers-by.

Even that most unpredictable element of all – the weather – is evidently not beyond the control of the authorities.

Some 20 miles outside the city, ‘weather modification’ teams manning anti-aircraft guns were poised before Friday’s spectacular opening ceremony to fire specially made shells containing silver iodide and dry ice into the clouds.

The aim was to empty the clouds before they could deliver a downpour over Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. Having spent millions on the greatest show on earth, China was not going to allow anyone, not even the heavens, to rain on its parade.

And for good measure the entire city was also declared a no-fly zone during the ceremony. The ban included kites, homing pigeons and model aeroplanes.

It is now impossible to stand anywhere in Beijing without seeing something Olympics-related.

There are flags and flowers and One World, One Dream banners everywhere. Only official Olympic sponsors can advertise on billboards during the Games.

The names of two sport shops on Wangfujing, the city’s main shopping street, have been covered up with banners for no other reason than they are rivals to Adidas, one of the Games’ main sponsors.

As well as sanitising the streets, Beijing is also pressing its squeaky clean image online through an army of zealous students dubbed the Fifty Cent Gang. The students have been trained as web commentators to counter criticism of the Olympics.

They espouse pro-Communist Party views on web forums and chatrooms, while also reporting anything considered subversive to the authorities. They are said to receive 50 mao (or cents) – hence their nickname – for each positive post they make.

So what will the council staff from the East London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, who are in Beijing on a fact-finding mission paid for by taxpayers, learn from all this?

Newham is the main host borough for the London 2012 Olympics, while some of the area set aside for the Games also falls into neighbouring Hackney.

Doubtless there are a few eyesores they would like to cover up and it seems they need little excuse to install more CCTV cameras. But silencing our loquacious taxi drivers?

Not in a million years.