Imagine the terror of the Chinese officials

16 July 2008

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David Tang reflects on his visits to Beijing in the run-up to the Games, where Western expertise has been harnessed to the ruthless efficiency of China’s government machine

The anxiety of all the preparations for a perfect Olympic banquet is not confined to the capital. Last week Vice-President Xi Jinping, who is favourite to succeed Hu Jintao, arrived in Hong Kong to inspect the equestrian facilities for the games. He openly lectured the local government to make damn sure that nothing goes wrong. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive (Sir) Donald Tsang never smiled a more nervous smile. No doubt the same lecture would have been delivered to Tianjin, where the football games will be played. The bullet train, with a top speed of 350 km/hour, which will link the city to the capital, has been on umpteen trials for perfection, lest vital face is vicariously lost to the Japanese.

There is almost a soft sense of terror among all the officials who have been assigned specific responsibilities of ensuring a trouble-free 17 days. On the whole, China deserves a successful Olympics. But in the process, she will have learned that it is not easy striking a balance between autocratic control within the country and opening up to the outside world. Inside China there are already 221 million users of the internet and 47 million bloggers, who are emerging as a force of formidable criticism of officialdom — exactly the kind of cancer that makes the Politburo nervous. The Tiananmen incident resulted directly from citizens’ discontent with social conditions, and this has become an indelible warning to the Chinese government. Surprisingly, President Hu himself published the fact that in 2007 there were 87,000 incidents of sizeable demonstrations. So China understands the importance of people’s satisfaction. New laws designed to protect the property rights of individuals have been introduced. Ditto labour laws, highly unpopular with employers, protecting the tenure of workers. Citizens can now even phone in to hotlines lodging complaints about officials, although the joke in these early days is that nobody answers them. China understands the necessity of being seen to observe at least some international standards of governance. So the country is enacting laws to protect intellectual property rights, in keeping with its WTO promise, the failure of which so far to keep causing perennial criticism by the US and EU. It remains to be seen, however, how this could be achieved when the piracy industry props up the livelihood of millions living in southern China, in particular Shenzhen, the special economic zone created by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Shenzhen was then a backwater with a population of just 70,000. Within 12 years, it grew to seven million. Today, its population is nine million, and its physical expansion has multiplied 600-fold. This by no means unique example of manic development has underpinned the emergence of China into the 21st century, and the statistics have acted as a magnet to visitors, especially businessmen.

But meanwhile, the only concern of the entire country is that China puts on the best Olympics ever, to be opened with a jaw-dropping ceremony masterminded by China’s greatest visual artist, Zhang Yimou, ex-lover of the Monroesque Gong Li. It will be the one occasion when even Hollywood’s Ben-Hur-ian spectaculars might have to give way to the genius of modern China — a modern China which makes no excuses for copying the West, except in its democratic niceties.

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Shim Jae Hoon

July 30th, 2008 12:36am Report this comment

To Mr Tang,

It's a good article, though a bit too heavy on the side of cynicism and criticisms, but as a Korean who experienced a similar national upheaval (how else can I describe the huge, protracted national exertions in money and attention for the Games?) in 1988, I can fairly sympathise with Chinese leaders' anxiety to present the best possible face. For all that, I think Beijing can make use of this occasion to highlight a number of issues that afflict its gigantic economic development efforts -- such as environment protection, improved sanitary concerns, a more equitable distribution of concern to "softer" side of development -- the importance of developing high culture, a more acute feeling for building up the social, economic and political institutions, not necessarily to the level of Europe and the US, but at least to match the level of its neighbours. One may dismiss this as trivial, but Japan and South Korea managed to do away with their traditional toilet system after their Olympics. China can at least do the same. As for the political challenge, well, Korea's military leaders never quite recovered from its impact. They ardently sought the Olympic games to enhance their prestige, but to their astonishment found it shaking their foundation. China will not be an exception to this rule. - Shim Jae Hoon.

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