How will we remember China’s first time as host of the Olympics? During its seven-year preparation for these games, the People’s Republic has withstood the pressures of its internal contradictions remarkably well. Somehow it has managed to sustain economic growth while treating thousands of dissidents with a heavyhandedness more appropriate to a Cold War police-state. A well-received Olympics could change that, permanently. For although Beijing has proved relatively impervious to criticisms of its human rights record (or its failure to condemn client states like Sudan, Zimbabwe or Burma), its hopes for a successful Olympics has made it unusually susceptible to worldwide public opinion.
Earlier this week President Hu asked the foreign media not to politicise coverage of the games. He did so as his government struggled to spin its way past the embarrassment of fudging its promise of unfettered internet access for visiting journalists. This sort of paradox – a government that censors its own media begging the indulgence of a free press – is commonplace in contemporary China, where families are still limited to one child despite decades of rapid economic growth, where state-of-the-art technology is often made in conditions of Dickensian squalor, where an online community of 230 million users still lives in fear of imprisonment for being too outspoken.
Nowhere are these contrasts more evident than in what has happened to Beijing. On one hand historic neighbourhoods have been swept aside in the rush to facelift the city for foreign tourists and media. On the other, cheap labour has allowed property developers to use building-crews as large as 9,000 men (working round-the-clock shifts) to create of some the world’s most beautiful new buildings. Two of these will feature prominently in the upcoming competitions: the “Bird’s Nest” national stadium, which seats 90,000 – a giant net of latticed steel lined with a concrete skin – and the ultramodern “Water Cube” Aquatics Center (17,000 seats) whose walls are giant bubbles encased in translucent plastic eight one-thousandths of an inch thick. Without China’s paradoxical mix of abundant cash and centralized authority it is highly unlikely that anything as ambitious as these structures could have been built anywhere else on the planet.
Other upgrades have been just as impressive. Beijing now has twice as many first-class hotels as it did in 2001(more than 800, offering 130,000 rooms) and it has re-paved more than 100 miles of inner-city roads to help make them more accessible. (Placed end-to-end China’s modern highways would stretch around the equator one-and-a-half times!) And though it is more famous for traffic jams and smog, the capital now has a landscaped forest twice the size of New York’s Central Park. Forest Park has been planted with half a million trees (showcasing some 200 local species)and tastefully filled with dozens of Chinese and international sculptures.
None of this has come cheaply – estimates run as high as US$40 billion dollars – and the human cost has been much debated. The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights claims that 1.5 million people have been displaced by construction projects for the Olympics – the government counters with a figure of 15,000. Either way Beijing hopes to recoup much of this in the 1.5 million new jobs the games will create, as well as the estimated US$9 billion worth of extra investment it hopes to attract. The government also predicts that the Olympics could stimulate an annual increase in tourism worth nearly 10 billion dollars.
The preparation of athletes has been no less thorough. As soon as it was awarded the games, the government made gold medals a national priority. In 2001, the Sports Ministry’s budget was increased from $428 to $714 million and since then 3,000 state-run academies have driven some 400,000 specially chosen students towards dreams of Olympic gold. Special attention has been given to medal-rich sports, in which a few stars can win several times over – a strategy that has paid off handsomely in the recent past. In Athens, for example, China won six of the eight gold medals in the diving competitions. This time it has also concentrated on women’s events which rival countries have funded less well.
lmost nothing about these games has been left to chance. Threats of terrorism have brought out a police presence that is almost as large as the expected number of visitors. English speakers have double-checked signs around the main sports venues, correcting any ungrammatical English. Even cheering has been regulated. Xinhua news agency reports that 30 official cheerleading squads have been designated to show spectators proper applause etiquette, the government has also asked hundreds of schoolchildren to adopt specific nations that might otherwise go uncheered, and to offer them special encouragement during the games. When last has any host nation been so thoughtful and courteous (and so naively enthusiastic) about an international sporting event?
If the world can set aside its political grievances for a fortnight, China’s Olympics will likely be a spectacular public relations success. If, however (as is more likely), Beijing finds itself responding extemporaneously to opportunistic protests and nosy foreign journalists then these Olympics may turn out to be more of a political event than President Hu would like them to be. Either way these Olympics will be a watershed for modern China and as such will be worth watching closely.
Beyond ridiculous
It has dominated the news for the past few days. And maybe, being who she is, Paris Hilton expected the kind of mileage she is receiving from her response to American presidential hopeful Republican Senator John McCain’s advertisement in which he used her image, without her permission, one might add, in an attempt to get at his opponent Democratic Senator Barack Obama.
Hilton, whose ancestors founded the world-renowned Hilton Hotels, had long been branded with the demeaning prejudicial adjective (which this column will not repeat) used to describe women with yellow hair for decades. The socialite added to the general disdain which surrounded her and others of her ilk, when racy videos of her appeared online, followed by sightings during hard partying that made the news.
Hilton, who has worked as a model, also claims to be a singer, actress and businesswoman. She has in fact founded her own record label and released an album. She has also had cameo appearances in a few films in addition to co-starring in ‘The Simple Life’, a now-cancelled television reality series.
However, Hilton’s pursuits in the entertainment business have had as much impact on the industry as a damp squib and she is more often said to be ‘famous for being famous’. Or should that have been infamous? Just over a year ago, Hilton was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. Her driver’s licence was suspended as a result and she was subsequently sentenced to three years probation and fined some $1,500. Some months later, she was caught driving without a licence and while that matter was still in the legal system, she was caught speeding a month later. This time, she appeared in court and was sentenced to 45 days in prison, but served about 23 days in all, amid much controversy and a virtual media circus.
How does she compare with Obama? That is a question that perhaps only McCain, or whichever young brain in his campaign conceptualised the advertisement and made the comparison, can answer. Even Hilton, it would appear, was at a loss to make the connection and she certainly did not attempt to address it in her response to the advertisement. Instead, Hilton directed her tongue-in-cheek remarks (and one hopes they were tongue-in-cheek – heavens forbid that she actually meant them) directly at McCain, as she had every right to.
Hilton’s response, which has been shown in its entirety on the Jay Leno Show, begins with an image of McCain and a voice over which says: “He’s the oldest celebrity in the world, like super-old. Old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket. But, is he ready to lead?”
The next shot is of Hilton sitting on a pool chair in a leopard-print swimsuit and she is saying: “Hey America, I am Paris Hilton and I’m a celebrity too,” she said. “Only I’m not from the olden days and I am not promising change like that other guy. I’m just hot.
“But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I’m running for president. And I want America to know that I’m like, totally ready to lead.”
She then outlines her “energy policy”, which includes “limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit to make hybrid electric cars… Energy crisis solved.” She ends with: “I’ll see you at the debates, bitches.”
Well there have been times in the past when presidential campaigns have become ridiculous. Candidates, it would seem, are unable to stop themselves from departing from the issues they should be campaigning on and getting into each other’s personal lives. However, none have ever gone quite this far in terms of the outrageous, which Hilton’s response ably demonstrates. If this is what it has come to in August, what will it be like in October? But perhaps this is the result of the stress of being in what has so far been an extremely long and tiring campaign. One hopes that this bit of farce gives both candidates pause for thought and that their next steps are taken with the seriousness necessary to place the process back where it should be.
