“We don’t want to pour oil into the fire,” a company source told the German news agency DPA on Wednesday.

But other sources in Beijing involved in the marketing campaign for Audi’s new SUV spoke of making only “a few changes” and that the carmaker “had decided not to invite any foreign media” to the event where the Olympic torch is to be carried to the top of the highest mountain in the world.

Foreign journalists have been banned from Tibet since the brutal Chinese crackdown against protests there last month. Audi is the only official sponsor for the torch event at Mount Everest, which is scheduled to take place in early May.