Ian Johnson writes in the Wall Street Journal:
“The great irony of this is that much of the success of China [in recent decades] is a retrenchment of the government and to a certain extent political relaxation,” says Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has written on the battle to control the Beijing Games’ image. “But to get this image across they have to go back to pre-reform methods.”
In the battle to control the message, proponents and opponents have drawn on history. Critics have dubbed this a redux of 1936, when the Nazis used the Games to emphasize their near-total control over society. Defenders have said it is more like the 1988 Seoul Games, which came to symbolize South Korea’s dramatic democratization. Others see this closer to Tokyo in 1964: an Asian country eager to put the past behind it and dazzle with technological wonders like the Bullet Train.
Although China isn’t as technologically advanced as Japan, it has deployed state largess to impress visitors, especially architecture fans. Critics have visited and been duly impressed by the city’s new trophy buildings, such as the “Bird’s Nest” stadium, the giant new home for state broadcaster China Central Television and the egg-shape National Center for the Performing Arts. Even though the latter two aren’t related to the Olympics, they have been taken as symbols of a new, dynamic China, never mind that they are products of a colossal state effort.
