China Digital Times (CDT) » Tag: Olympics impact

China Relishes Olympics Legacy

Sophie Beach — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:44:22 +0000

On the one year anniversary of the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, journalists are reflecting on the legacy of the Games for Beijing and for China. From the Christian Science Monitor:

One year after Beijing hosted the Summer Games, its impact can be seen in the city’s sporting venues, shiny new infrastructure, and improved air quality, notwithstanding the latest smog. As the world watched, China radiated efficiency, sportsmanship, and pluck, on and off the field.
But any hopes that the Beijing Olympics would spur more political openness, as members of the Olympics movement had claimed, were short-lived. In the run-up, China tightened its grip on domestic criticism and lashed out at the world for “meddling” in Tibet during an ill-fated international torch relay. Since then, there have been more clampdowns.
Far from easing China into a world of human rights and obligations, the Olympics may have had the opposite effect. Its Communist leaders used the reflected glory to tighten their grip and hammer home a message of unflinching national superiority, says Russell Moses, a political analyst in Beijing.
“Beijing made it plain. This wasn’t China coming out to the world. This was the world coming round to China,” he says.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes, “A year later, Beijing Olympic legacy remains vague” while Xinhua reports that, “China moving ahead with confidence gained during Olympics.”

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A Crisis Rooted In Two Chinas

Xiao Qiang — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:38:06 +0000

“Milk scare stems from problematic ‘normal’ China, while the ‘abnormal’ China is a show-time success,” Bill Schiller writes in theStar.com:

Christopher Hughes, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, says he believes Chinese officials “spared no cost” in ensuring foreigners’ food and milk were safe during the Olympics.
“And the conclusion being drawn by many (Chinese) on the Internet, is that their government cares more about protecting foreigners and their own international image than it does about saving the lives of Chinese babies.”
Why can’t China guarantee safe milk for its babies?
There is a complex of reasons, says Hughes: “systemic corruption, bureaucratic inefficiencies and the lack of a strong civil society of non-governmental organizations and a free press.”
The government that we have assumed to be in total control – controlling the media, organized worship, even grey-haired grannies wanting to demonstrate – might not be in as much control as we thought.

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Post tags: Li Datong, milk contamination, Olympics impact, Sanlu
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What We Learned

Xiao Qiang — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:10:47 +0000

Dr. Fei-Ling Wang published the following essay at the International Herald Tribune:

The spectacular and successful 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have given the world a lot to think about. It may be still early to fully assess the impact of the event on China and its future, nonetheless, three messages have emerged.
First, it is hard to overlook the capacity and power of the Chinese state.
Under an autocratic, increasingly corporatist and aristocratic party, the People’s Republic has shown how much it can spend for a politically important cause, even if it is, after all, just a sporting event that has been thoroughly commercialized in other places all over the world.
The unparalleled $43 billion price tag is just the known part of the expenses. By comparison, the last Olympic Games held in the U.S., in 1996 in Atlanta, cost only $2 billion. To ensure air quality and crowd control, a good chunk of the Chinese economy and society was shut down for two months.

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‘Post-Olympic Era’ Off to a Rocky Start in China

Sophie Beach — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:43:34 +0000

Now that the glow of the Olympics is wearing off, journalists are taking another look at post-Olympics/Paralympics China and are not so optimistic. From AP:

China received widespread praise for organizing the games, which formally ended Wednesday with the Paralympics’ closing ceremony.
Even before then, however, reality reasserted itself with the collapse earlier this month at an illegal mine waste dump that killed at least 259 people and forced the resignation of a provincial governor. Since then, a product safety scandal has roiled the nation, with contaminated milk powder causing the death of three infants and sickening more than 6,200 others.
Both crises point to underlying systemic weaknesses that the Olympics did little to eliminate, despite a massive effort to clean up Beijing’s polluted air, boost security and ensure smooth logistics.

See also: After the Olympics, will China crack? from the Guardian.

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Post tags: food safety, mine safety, Olympics impact
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Chinese Romance in the Air During Beijing Olympics

Jenny Leung — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:47:49 +0000

The Beijing Olympics allowed the Chinese people to present themselves as more romantic to the world, according to Xinhua News Agency:

Zhang Yimou, the famed film director and the opening ceremony director, said the 2008 Beijing Olympics provided a stage for the world to know better how romantic Chinese were.

It changed preconceptions of Chinese people by foreigners, and also changed the Chinese people’s own perceptions, the article continues:

“The Chinese are getting more outgoing, partially because they have growing confidence over themselves and the country,” said Professor Zhang Yiwu of the Chinese Department at the elite Peking University.
“The Chinese used to prefer to act as someone better than themselves. Now they want to be natural and outgoing. This is a big change,” he said.
Cameras recorded how the nation behaved in the romantic way during the Olympics, which was quite different from the traditional and stereotyped “inarticulate” Chinese.
“The Chinese, since ancient times, have never lacked the sense of being romantic … romance has long been blended into the Chinese blood,” director Zhang said.

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Were the Olympics Worth It?

Xiao Qiang — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:25:57 +0000

“Posted on the Chinese MSN site, an article (that appears to have originated at ifeng.com) discusses whether the Beijing Olympics were worth their unprecedented budget, with opinions from economists and average readers, pro and con. But the article never says what the graph makes clear: over half of those surveyed said the Games just weren’t worth it.” From the Foreign Expert blog:

THE ARTICLE:
Is it worth it for China to spend so much money on the Beijing Olympics?
According to a report, China has spent about $43 billion on the Beijing Olympics; this number makes the Beijing Olympic Games the most expensive Olympic Games in history.
It depicts China as a country that spends money improvidently and it also starts a debate among people on the success of the price paid. Some proposed on overseas Chinese Internet chat rooms that spending the money on helping the poor would be worthier.
Is it worth it? Online surveys show big differences:
In a survey in which nearly 70,000 people participated, 36.4 percent of Netizens believe the money has been spent in deserving places, “This investment is not excessive at all,” while 13.3 percent of Netizens think they still need time to see. “The results need some time to be evaluated.”

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Post tags: Olympics impact, Olympics spending
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An Olympic Evaluation

Xiao Qiang — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:18:52 +0000

Eric Setzekorn is a graduate student at UC Irvine specializing in military history and is currently finishing an exchange semester with the Beijing University history department. He writes in the China Beat blog:

For foreigners visiting Beijing, especially first-time visitors to China, the Olympic experience was an almost picture-perfect blend of idealized chinoiserie and ultra-modern convenience. Thousands of blue-shirted college volunteers facilitated the tourist hordes’ need to navigate the transportation grid, enter sporting events, and even find good restaurants. The Olympics served as a way to groom thousands of volunteers to become comfortable dealing with foreigners in a confident and knowledgeable manner and become the point of the spear in business and government in the new “Chinese Century.”
However, real progress in terms of language fluency and cross-cultural understanding was slight due to the controlled and directed nature of foreigner to volunteer interaction. Much of the problem stems from the draconian visa requirements that essentially restricted access to upper-class Europeans and Americans on package tours. With an average age in their forties, these visitors were understandably viewed as safer and more commercially lucrative than twenty-something backpackers.
The carefully screened and prepped volunteers who greeted them were selected by rigorous foreign language exams and forced to undergo weeks of full-time training, and so real interaction between visitors and volunteers was stunted by the seldom-deviated-from official guidelines. Any question regarding politics or international relations was either ignored or directed to one of the many volunteers who are party members, easily identified by the small red hammer-and-sickle pins on their shirts.

(...)
Read the rest of An Olympic Evaluation (162 words)
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Post tags: Olympics impact, Olympics publicity
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Cao Jingxing: The Chinese People During The Olympics

Xiao Qiang — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:39:36 +0000

Cao Jingxing wirtes in the Hong Kong-based Ming Pao Monthly, translated in the ESWN blog:

Some people have called 2008 the “Year of the Volunteers” in China. This is not just about the Olympics, but the Wenchuan earthquake in May also raised the civic awareness of the Chinese people (especially the youth). It was realized in the the numerous NGO’s which rushed towards the Sichuan earthquake disaster zone. These came as spontaneous actions by citizens as opposed to existing government operations. This was a breakthrough within the existing system.
This may be the most important new issue for the ruling party in China. The Chinese youth have the most civic awareness. They can support various government policies (such as hosting the Olympics). They can also tolerate or even endure certain improprieties of the rulers (such as the various mistakes during the Olympics like the chaos over the ticket sales and the invasiveness of the security procedures). But they are increasingly less obedient to the orders from the system. They treat disaster relief and the Olympics as their personal projectx and they will take action based upon their own ideas. This is perhaps the true significance of the Bird’s Nest generation.
After the 2008 Beijing Olympics lowered its curtains, the Beijing authorities may go back to its traditional and stale practice of singing paeans while refusing to address the flaws, mistakes and corruption. They may think that they can make superficial statements without any drastic changes to the system. They may think that the Olympics was successful through the power of the government. They may deliberately inhibit the inevitable development of a civic society in China. Now that would be a betrayal of those Chinese folks who genuinely supported China to host the Olympics.
If the citizens of a society become disappointed with a government, if their support turns into doubt and contempt and if the tolerable becomes the intolerable, a social crisis ensues especially when there are economic troubles.
It is easy to to perceive the impact of the Beijing Olympics on the world. The impact on the future changes in China is uncertain. There will be many big changes in China after August 8. The suspense is just how China will change.

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Ann Kent: China’s Thin Veil of Compliance

Xiao Qiang — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:39:47 +0000

From The Canberra Times:

Why the official paranoia, why the theatre, why the intense security which made life so difficult? The need for security against international terrorism, while legitimate to a degree, was exaggerated to become the official cover for manifestations of extreme xenophobia. To many conservative Chinese leaders, status is more important than goodwill; form more meaningful than substance; the perfect theatrical performance, the technically perfect Games, more important than the individual spectator’s sense of wellbeing and enjoyment. This is particularly a feature of those bodies involved in the Olympics organisation, the Ministry of State Security, the Bureau of Public Security and the People’s Liberation Army. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, normally the cosmopolitan, enlightened and diplomatic leader or intermediary in international events, was less in evidence.
But it was more than just a conflict between organisational cultures. The Chinese Government is struggling to maintain its rule and at the same time guarantee social cohesion without political rights. This is particularly difficult now when leaders perceive a need to balance rising inflation against the requirement to create more jobs. In a country where unemployment is now endemic, inequality a source of rising discontent, and corruption and land seizure are a daily scourge, the Government is engaged in a two-line struggle to maintain popular support. It is allowing its citizens ”freedom of expression” on discrete issues decided by the Government on the basis of their potential to promote a unifying chauvinism.
In other words, the rights of foreigners before and during the Olympics were abused because it was more important for China’s leadership to send a message to its own citizens: That the international community recognised the legitimacy of its rule over the whole country, including Tibet.That China was now a country with sufficient international status and power to put on the most technically impressive Olympics ever.That, in the process, no foreign or domestic political dissent would be tolerated.

Dr Kent is Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International and Public Law, College of Law, Australian National University and the author of Beyond Compliance: China, International Organisations and Global Security (Stanford University Press, 2007).

Did the Games Improve Rights in China?

Sophie Beach — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:58:04 +0000

The BBC looks at whether the Olympics had the positive impact on the rights situation in China that many observers hoped for:

The immediate impact was both positive and negative.
On the plus side, tough restrictions on foreign journalists were lifted in the run-up to and during the Games, giving much greater media access. (Those more liberal rules expire in October and an important question is whether they are renewed.)
Also, the looming Games made China more sensitive than usual to international criticism. That eagerness for the Games not to be “spoiled” may have contributed to progress in other, more general, areas.
[...] But there were obvious negatives. The forced evictions which made the Olympic construction possible. The bolstering of security forces throughout the country and especially in Beijing.
The pressure on dozens of activists, who, according to reports, were forced to leave Beijing for the summer, confined to their homes or even arrested as part of the general suppression of dissent.