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If Stephen Harper thought he was sending a message to China by refusing to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, his message is failing to impress the Chinese so far.

China's official media are ignoring or twisting his words, even to the point of making him appear to support their party line on the Olympics. And in the livelier corners of the Chinese Internet, enraged Chinese patriots are denouncing the Canadian Prime Minister as an arrogant “clown.”

Mr. Harper announced last week that he would not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August. He did not give any specific reason for the decision, and he said it was not a boycott, but at the same time he urged China to listen to world concerns about its treatment of Tibetans. Most analysts said he was sending a clear message to China.

But the message has been muddled and manipulated by the Chinese authorities. Most of the state-controlled media have ignored Mr. Harper's words, or reported only his opposition to a boycott. His advice to China on human rights has been ignored by almost all of the Chinese media.

The state-owned news agency, Xinhua, even published an article that included Mr. Harper in a long list of world leaders who had “voiced their objection” to a boycott of the opening ceremony. The agency failed to mention that Mr. Harper had just announced he would not attend.

The news agency gave an equally misleading report about Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, saying that he had talked to his Chinese counterpart this week and they agreed that Tibet was “an inalienable part of China.”

The report also said that Canada supported China's hosting of the Olympics and would send an “official team” to the opening ceremony. But it failed to mention that Mr. Bernier had also expressed his concern about the situation in Tibet. And it failed to mention that Mr. Harper would not attend the opening ceremony.

Most of the Chinese media and Internet users are hostile to Mr. Harper's attempt to urge China to respect human rights in Tibet. Global Times, a newspaper owned by the People's Daily, wrote this week that Mr. Harper showed “ignorance and even contempt” toward the views of Chinese Canadians. The newspaper reported that Chinese Canadians were “dissatisfied” with his comments on human rights and “would use their legal voting rights to fight back against this ignorance and contempt.”

On a nationalist website in Beijing called anti-CNN.com, Chinese commentators blasted Mr. Harper for his announcement that he would not attend the opening ceremony. “He's just a clown,” one person wrote. Another described him as a “poor and ignorant prime minister.”

On the Strong Country forum of the People's Daily website, the posters were equally vitriolic about Mr. Harper. Some called him “arrogant” and “shameless.” One person said Mr. Harper was the head of a “hooligan government” that had provided a haven for Chinese criminals.

Chris Rudge, chief executive officer of the Canadian Olympic Committee, said he had heard “very little” reaction from China to Mr. Harper's announcement.

Mr. Rudge, who is attending Olympic meetings in Beijing this week, said there was a “Canadian tradition” of not sending its top leader to the Olympic games. Canadian prime ministers did not attend the last two Olympics in Athens and Turin, he noted. “This is certainly no different. I wouldn't read any kind of statement into it.”

However, until the latest Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protesters, Mr. Harper was seriously considering a trip to Beijing for the Olympics, according to well-placed Canadian sources. One source had estimated there was a 50 per cent chance that he would attend the Beijing Olympics.

But that was before the Tibet crisis.