The Olympics wrapped up on Sunday with a closing ceremony as ornate and decadent as the gala that opened the games two weeks ago and so far, reviews of the host country have been mostly positive.
Though what China actually did to deserve the compliments is about as hazy as your average Beijing sunset.
“For Chinese leaders, all (their) effort paid off,” wrote Jim Yardley in a well-balanced piece for the New York Times this week. “The games were seen as an unparalleled success by most Chinese - a record medal count inspired nationwide excitement, and Beijing impressed foreign visitors with its hospitality and efficiency.”
Yardley’s piece, called “After Glow of Games, What Next for China?” goes on to say, “while the government’s uncompromising suppression of dissent drew criticism, China also demonstrated to a global audience that it is a rising economic and political power.”
That much seems obvious. China has been a seat of economic and political power for about the last six millennia. But the Olympics were meant to show the world a different side of the planet’s most populated nation. After a decade of planning, the games were to serve as a coming out party of sorts, reintroducing us all to a whole new China - one that is forward-looking and ready to take its place among the world’s superpowers.
Yet even after all the best laid plans sought to soften things for the international stage, did we really learn anything about China that we didn’t already know?
The Games of the XXIX Olympiad played out amid concerns over alleged human rights violations, religious persecution, air pollution, governmental control of the press and unfulfilled murmurs of boycott.
That the athletic heroics of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, the Redeem Team or the U.S. volleyball squad could distract us from those larger issues was handy in the moment, but the fact remains China has done little to address its many ills. Little aside from a few brazen acts of misdirection designed to conceal the true nature of things for two short weeks.
Sure, it built a $43 billion stadium complex and filled it to the brim each night. The opening and closing ceremonies were studies in extravagance. But this was already a nation that had nothing to prove in terms of sheer size. No one ever doubted that China had the might, it was nearly everywhere else that the Chinese needed to make strides.
To cut down on pollution, leaders temporarily restricted local levels of traffic. They sent out exhaustive instructions to its citizens on how to deal with the foreign tourists. They created specially designated “protest zones,” … then didn’t approve any of the applications filed by groups to make use of those areas during the games.
Those who did protest - including some Americans - were arrested, briefly jailed and then hustled onto planes headed back to their home countries just prior to the closing ceremonies.
Before the Olympics began, Chinese authorities effectively stalled protesters from the embattled region of Tibet by offering to meet with representatives of spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in October. There is no sign yet they intend to break their word, but critics theorize it was nothing more than a public relations move, designed just to get protesters off China’s back until after the Olympics.
The productivity of those meetings will be the first indicator as to whether or not the Olympic experience will have any lasting effect on China. Some hope that the country will benefit a surge in “self-confidence,” from hosting the games and that by feeling better about itself, China will learn to become more open and more tolerant.
Others are not so optimistic.
“They have earned a tremendous amount of face because of the Olympics,” Beijing media executive Hung Huang told Yardley. “They are going to ride on that for a while. We don’t have a culture that is pro-change.”
Personally, I’m holding my rave reviews until China can prove it’s ready to lead the world in more than just the gold medal count.
from: missoulian.com
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