Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

China: Having Its Cake And Eating It Too?

In an indignant and ultimately silly blog post comparing the Beijing Olympics to the Berlin Games in 1936, the usually excellent George Packer moans about China's inability to reform in the years since it won its bid in 2001. Writes Packer:

Don't accuse me of equating China with Nazi Germany, for I'm not€”but it's becoming clear that the I.O.C.'s decision to give the 2008 Olympics to Beijing is its worst call since 1936. Now that it's too late to turn around, China is busy breaking all its promises to improve human rights, allow uncensored coverage, or even€”for God's sake€”clean up the air in Beijing so that marathoners don't fall dead in the streets. I know we're supposed to say nice things about China as a rising power and welcome it to the world stage because anything else inflames Chinese nationalism. But the Chinese leadership wants to have it both ways: quick to criticize President Bush for interfering in China's sovereign affairs when he had the decency to meet Chinese dissidents this week, but eager to cash in on all the geo-political benefits that the Olympics will bring. China didn't even bother to abstain last month but instead vetoed sanctions against Robert Mugabe at the U.N. Unlike Germany in 1936, China is prettifying its streets without pretending to prettify its foreign policy.

Packer's no dummy, but honestly- did anyone really expect (aside from the naive IOC) that China would somehow begin to behave just because it got the Games? Like any living organism, governments only evolve when they face pressure to do so. The Olympics, as major an undertaking as they are, never threatened the legitimacy of the government. Also, what geo-political benefits does Packer imagine China receiving from the Olympics? China's status hasn't changed in the past seven years- it is still a rising (but minor) power with a booming economy, an authoritarian state that restricts individual liberties in favor of social harmony and political stability, and a nation whose foreign policy is mainly characterized by mercantilist schemes in countries the West avoids for "moral" reasons. It also is home to one-fifth of the global population, the majority of whom remain very poor.

I can see Packer's point: China does like to see itself as a integral part of the global community but gets snippy with every real or imagined slight against its sovereignty. But it is hardly alone in this respect. The U.S. (under Presidents Clinton and Bush) refused to sign onto the International Criminal Court or ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Russia uses heavy-handed tactics to influence political outcomes in its neighboring countries. Thailand and Cambodia narrowly avoided a war over a temple, for heaven's sake. Sovereign countries will always act in their own self-interest.

Plus, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: everyone needs to just relax. The Olympics are an international sporting competition. The biggest one, of course, but still just a sporting competition. As I wrote yesterday, I cannot believe that had Berlin not hosted the '36 games World War Two would have been averted, nor would the Soviet Union still have existed today had the Olympics been elsewhere in 1980.

Packer flippantly hopes that the games go "a-flop". Why? What would that really accomplish? The Games mean a lot to a lot of people, not only the athletes but also the people in China and elsewhere who have worked very hard to make the Olympics successful. I, for one, will sit back and watch, reveling in good old fashioned sport competition.

Olympic Thoughts

I remember taking the above photo in Tiananmen Square during my first visit to Beijing in January 2005, back when the whole idea of promoting an Olympics less than six months after the previous one finished seemed more than a little ridiculous. Now, the Games are exactly a week away, and the energy and intensity of Chinese media coverage has been astonishing. Has the privilege of hosting the Games ever captured an entire nation with such fervor before?

Seven years ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 games to Beijing, hoping that by doing so the Chinese government would work toward improving human rights in the Middle Kingdom. This hasn't really happened. While China's economy continues to grow, its political situation remains largely stagnant. The news media is no freer than it was twenty years ago, even with the spread of the Internet. Repression of dissident minorities, if anything, has only increased in intensity. Single-party rule has not teetered, waned, or even questioned itself; the Communist Party remains in firm control of government and society. Pollution, which Beijing swore it would curb by the time the games arrived, still looms over the city (and country) as an ever-present reminder of China's dire environmental situation.

The IOC, naturally, feels somewhat disappointed. Barring an unforeseen development, the Games haven't had the political effect its stewards wished for, and if anything they'll merely serve as a vehicle for robust Chinese nationalism. I imagine the IOC will breathe a huge sigh of relief at the closing ceremonies and then turn their attention to the far more calming prospect of London in 2012.

I find it difficult to sympathize with the IOC's political hand-wringing. China is hardly the first authoritarian state to host the Olympics, after all. Nazi-controlled Germany hosted the 1936 Games in Berlin, and the Communist Soviet Union did so forty-four years later. Some have argued that the '36 games did nothing but propel the Third Reich on its terrible course, but is that really so? Isn't the enduring story from those Games Jesse Owens' victory in the 100-meter dash, disproving Hitler's notion of white supremacy? Did the 1980 games have any effect whatsoever on the subsequent collapse of the USSR? Methinks the crumbling centrally-planned economy and disastrous Afghanistan invasion may have had more to do with the end of Soviet rule than any athletic competition.

China, like it or not, has the world's largest population. It has never hosted the Games before. Its previous international competitions (such as the Asian Games) succeeded without any major problems. Putting aside the pollution issue, Beijing has prepared for the Games about as well as could be expected. And, as in the case in every previous Olympics, there will be moments of glorious achievement and moments of agonizing defeat. Which is the whole point, isn't it?