08-29-2008
Initiatives for China
Contact: Jim Geheran
Tel: 202-290-1423
initiatives4china@gmail.com
www.initiativesforchina.org

The Beijing Olympics was an impressive event, but not primarily because of the dazzling but highly politicized opening ceremonies, or the feats of Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt, or the fact that China’s athletes earned the largest number of gold medals ever won by a host country’s Olympic team. No, the Olympic Games in Beijing distinguished themselves most by demonstrating how an autocratic system can marshal resources to market itself and try to convince the world of the validity of its illegitimate rule.

Without the consent of Chinese taxpayers, let alone the benefit of the vast majority of Chinese, an estimated $42 to $44 billion was spent by the Chinese government on the Olympics—a total more than the cost of the previous five Olympic Games combined. In May of this year, Sichuan province was struck by a devastating earthquake which killed nearly 70,000 people and left another 5 million homeless. At that time, China’s government estimated that it would cost $147 billion for reconstruction—including rebuilding 3,400 primary schools and strengthening another 2,600. Today the fund for this endeavor amounts to $10 billion. I wonder how the homeless and the parents of the children who died mainly because their school buildings were poorly built by the government in Wen-chuan Earthquake viewed the pageantry of the $44 billion dollar Olympics?

With still more taxpayer money, the Chinese government invested disproportionately in training medal-winning athletes. While these athletes brought home many medals from which they themselves will benefit both politically and economically, many Chinese children don’t even have access to a simple field to do basic physical exercises, to say nothing of equipment and facilities for sport. Just two years ago, more than forty elementary school children in Shaanxi Province were killed when they were struck by a bus while running on a highway; their school had no athletic field.

Additionally, although Beijing’s Olympic Organizing Committee had designated three public parks for protestors, no permits were actually issued, and many of those who were naive enough to apply for permits were instead detained by the Chinese government. A 79-year-old petitioner was interrogated for 10 hours and then sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor.” The Foreign Correspondents Club of China, based in Beijing, announced 10 cases of journalists being beaten or roughed up by police who sometimes smashed their cameras. The Beijing games also took place under virtual martial law, with the revival of Mao Zedong’ “peoples warfare” vigilante and the spying functions of the neighborhood committees in full effect.

Further, many more people in the host country were negatively affected by these Olympics than ever before. Many people, including migrant workers, students, and dissidents, were relocated; thousands of forced evictions took place; businesses were shut down; traffic was cleared; and even the blood supply was cut off for ordinary people in order to have reserves on hand for any Olympic emergencies. All this happened while the heads of about 80 nations attended the games, including more than 14 democratic countries. The Chinese government, in a moment of hyperbole, said that hosting the Olympics had been a dream of the Chinese people for a hundred years. Exaggeration aside, the yearning for an international pilgrimage to Beijing to pay homage to the leaders of China has been a centuries old dream of China’s elite. Perhaps a dream as old as Chinese history itself.

Alas, the dream was finally realized.President George W. Bush, the putative leader of the Free World, dutifully took his appointed perch in the Olympic Stadium—nicknamed “The Bird’s Nest”—to witness the splendor of Olympic pageantry and in so doing, pay homage to the leaders of China. President Bush claimed that his attendance at the Beijing Olympics was meant to show respect for the Chinese people. Did the homeless in Sichuan, who lost their school-age children to the earthquake because of shoddy school construction feel respected? Or the parents of the children killed on the highway in Shaanxi province? Did the 79-year-old sentenced to re-education through labor simply for asking for a permit to demonstrate legally feel respected?

President Bush’s attendance was a wink and a nod, supporting only the autocracy itself, and giving tacit approval to its continued rule, in spite of its illegitimacy. More than being a testimony to athletic achievement, the Beijing Olympics was a testimony to the regime’s egregious success at sweeping its corruption and human rights abuses under the rug while letting a thousand public relations blossoms bloom Were the fireworks that mesmerizing, or are we still able to see what is so horribly wrong?

Yang Jianli

President Initiatives for China

Senior Fellow Harvard University

Former Political Prisoner

Hu Ping

Editot-in-Chief, Beijing Spring