China

The challenge to Beijingoism

China prepares for the Olympic games—and its critics

IN READINESS for the Olympic games, Beijing is putting the finishing touches to a colossal makeover: the world’s biggest airport terminal, skyscrapers, subway lines and lavish stadiums. It is guaranteed to impress the world. But the leadership is nervous. The games will be a magnet for China’s critics. At a time of growing unease around the world about everything from the safety of China’s products to its policies in Africa, there are plenty of them.

“A new Beijing, a new Olympics” is one of China’s slogans for the games. The English translation of this is tailored to suit a foreign audience. It refers to a “great Olympics”, not a new one, to avoid upsetting those who might fear an end to what they quaintly regard as a century-old tradition of international camaraderie. But there is no cause for alarm. What China means by new is an Olympics taken to new heights of razzmatazz. Hollywood’s Steven Spielberg has been recruited to help design the opening and closing ceremonies. Beijing is justifiably confident that its purpose-built Olympics infrastructure, including a $430m stadium resembling a bird’s nest of steel, will be ready in time.

Psychologically, however, China is less well-prepared. Hollywood has already shown it can be a fickle partner, with some of its thespian elite lashing out in 2007 against Mr Spielberg’s involvement. Their allegation was that China’s large oil investments in Sudan were helping to sustain the government-orchestrated bloodshed in Darfur. Stung by this, China began to support UN intervention in the Darfur crisis.

But China’s critics in the West will not be sated. In the build-up to the games on August 8th they will step up their attacks on issues ranging from China’s human-rights record to the status of Tibet and Taiwan. It will be the most politically contentious Olympics since Moscow staged the games in 1980, not long after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Foreign activists and Chinese citizens overseas with axes to grind will flock to Beijing to try to stage public protests. If mishandled by the Chinese police (who have been instructed to stop demonstrations as politely as possible), these incidents could seriously embarrass the hosts, multinational companies sponsoring the games and foreign dignitaries.

Patriotic fervour and a surging economy will help to keep a lid on unrest by domestic malcontents. But China’s security forces will be vigilant. An unexpected bout of food-price inflation in 2007, which looks likely to continue in 2008, will anger the urban poor. Some of Beijing’s political dissidents will take advantage of the spotlight on China to highlight their grievances.

Troubling for China too will be political uncertainty in two countries of vital concern to its security interests: Taiwan and America. Elections in Taiwan in early 2008 will fuel debate there about the island’s relations with the mainland. In America, presidential candidates will use an appearance of toughness about China (particularly its massive trade surplus with America) to appeal to voters.

The Olympics will focus global attention on China’s poor record of environmental protection and its huge contribution to global warming. The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will begin a second five-year term of office in March and is certain to make a big issue of the environment in his annual address to parliament that month. Beijing will introduce draconian—albeit temporary—restrictions on cars and industries in an effort to reduce the city’s haze in time for the games.

Beijing’s other environmental crisis—a critical shortage of water—will be somewhat alleviated in 2008 when it will begin receiving water piped in from four reservoirs in neighbouring Hebei province. The 300km (190-mile) pipeline will eventually form part of a channel bringing water from the Yangzi river basin hundreds of kilometres farther to the south. Environmentalists are unhappy. They fear that the scheme will damage the Yangzi’s ecology and that the water will be undrinkable. But China’s leaders like grandiose displays of engineering and technological prowess: the coming year will also see the first walk in space by Chinese astronauts, following the launch of a lunar probe in 2007.

Mind games

China will make few concessions to its critics abroad. President Hu Jintao, despite rewriting the Communist Party charter to reflect his calls for a fairer society, shows little enthusiasm for political reform. But rapid social change from the embrace of market economics will continue to erode the Communist Party’s grip. Although the party’s instinct will be to tighten controls on media freedom in the build-up to the games, the spread of advanced information technologies will make it ever harder to stem the tide of uncensored information.

A successful Olympics will give the party a bit more of a swagger, but success will depend on curbing its instinct to lash out at its critics. The games will not usher in democracy to China, but they will help to acclimatise both the leadership and the public to the world’s concerns about how the country is developing.