Olympic Success
I still recall turning on the television on September 29, 2004, the first full day I ever spent in China. On CCTV9 (the only channel I got that was in English), I noted with amazement at the number of advertisements there were for the Beijing Olympics, then nearly four years away. After all, the previous Olympics in Athens had only finished a few weeks before.
Yesterday, the Olympics finished. The whole country, as far as I can tell, is thinking: "what now?". It isn't so much that people here believe something will happen, but the Olympics have been such a dominant theme in China over the past several years that their completion leaves something of a void in the national psyche. Somehow, the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai doesn't have the same cache. What will the Chinese rally around next?
One would have to think that the Olympics were pretty successful by all accounts. China won the most gold medals, but America the most overall, allowing each country to plausibly claim victory. There were the brilliant individual performances of Michael Phelps in swimming and Udain Bolt in track, achievements that will be remembered for a long time.
The pollution wasn't bad, meaning that the Chinese strategy of shutting down factories and ordering cars off the road actually worked. Fears that the bad air would cause major problems for the athletes proved to be unfounded.
There were mini-controversies, but none were significant enough to ruin the Olympic vibe. Most troubling, to me, was the detention of two seventy-year old women attempting to protest a land dispute within the sanctioned "protest zone". Eerily reminiscent of the Hundred Flowers Movement, China's inability to tolerate any dissent whatsoever remains chilling, far more so than lip-synching or underage gymnasts.
The New York Times published an inevitable post-mortem today, written by Beijing correspondent Jim Yardley. Will China's leaders pursue a glasnost-like series of reforms, or will their belief in the righteousness of their rule be strengthened? Bet on the latter.
August 25th, 2008 - 19:31
You’re right that there were some amazing athletic achievements and few surprises on the political front. However the lack of freedom sours the whole experience in my opinion. The two elderly women who will be sent to a reeducation camp is one of the most egregious examples. (They didn’t even get a chance to protest – they were detained for merely applying for permits to protest in the protest zones!) Then there were the deported Free Tibet protesters, and the British journalist who was beat up by police for covering a protest.
August 25th, 2008 - 21:16
Dan,
I must confess to a selfish distaste for free-Tibet activists, as anytime Westerners make the news agitating for Tibet the noose tightens around the foreigner community here at large. But as you say the protest-zone arrests were outrageous and underreported.
August 26th, 2008 - 16:13
Dan, you’re right about the two seventy- year old women, that was simply absurd and I hope the cop who stamped that charge sheet gets a damn good clip round the ear in the full presence of his colleagues (which, realistically, is the most he’s going to suffer). The journalists, though (and it wasn’t just one pom) knew the risks and took them- and getting roughed up by Chinese cops ain’t that bad in the great scheme of things. The Western protesters get absolutely no sympathy from me, though. They came, they, in their infinite arrogance and self-righteousness, deliberately broke the law. They suffered the consequences- and deportation is a pretty sweet consequence compared to what faces the people the claim to be acting for.
But I don’t see a “lack of freedom”, or at least, no more so than normal. China was just being China, and, dare I say it, most of us here, Chinese and foreign, were able to get on with our lives as we saw fit with only a few extra and irritating impositions, and those impositions were no different from what I’d expect in any other city hosting a Major International Event.
August 27th, 2008 - 19:33
Chris,
I very rarely like to sound like a Western “freedom-fighter”, but I have to disagree with your last paragraph, especially this line: “and those impositions were no different from what I’d expect in any other city hosting a Major International Event.”.
I can’t think of any recent Olympics with any more restrictions of “freedom” (sorry, I hate what that word now means with the US administration throwing it around how it suits them). Roughing up journalists is no small matter. Even if worse didn’t happen to them, it is almost irrelevant. By roughing them up, it sends the message that any unwanted stories will be met with violent hostility. This completely wipes away the freedom of press. Saying that they knew the law makes no difference either. This is in international event in which China knew would have to open its borders to foreign press, told the IOC and the world it would relax restrictions to the press, and then didn’t.
Secondly, the idea of setting up “protest zones” but not allowing protesting would also not happen in any other city that has recently (perhaps Moscow?) held this event. The right to assemble and peacefully demonstrate against a perceived unjust policy is a right common in all the recent Olympic cities.
And then there is the internet sensorship. The Chinese government vowed to ease this restriction and didn’t. This lack of access to information only exists in very few countries around the world.