China’s record on human rights is unlikely to affect its chances of getting the 2008 Summer Olympics
John Gittings
‘Of course we want the Olympics bid to succeed,” exclaims a Beijing resident. “That way we will get a clean environment and a city worth living in.”
The prospect of China hosting its first global sporting event in 2008 became a little clearer on Tuesday, when the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) evaluation commission released its first assessment of bids to host a summer games.
Set up in an effort to eradicate the culture of bribery surrounding past bids, the commission’s report extolled the virtues of Beijing, rating it higher than Toronto or Paris. Osaka and Istanbul, the other candidates, did not feature well. But the Chinese authorities were warned it would be “inappropriate” to stage any events in Tiananmen Square, scene of the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters.
The IOC’s members are tipped to choose Beijing in the vital final vote on July 13 in Moscow.
Should they do so, the list of rewards promised by the Chinese government is impressive. Beijing, swept by sandstorms that blow across northern China from the deserts of Mongolia, is to become a “green” city, wired for high technology, with a modern user- and eco-friendly transportation system.
The city has promised to spend 1,2-billion on its Olympic preparations, including a vast new Olympic village, with further large sums devoted to improving the environment.
President Jiang Zemin has already made his gesture by planting trees at the new Olympic Park. The city claims that half its urban area will be covered with trees or grass by the year 2008.
Perhaps things were taken a little too far in February, however, when city workers were enlisted to spray the grass green in Tiananmen Square in readiness for the IOC’s inspection. Though the air was full of sand, the team seemed impressed by the Chinese presentation.
Everything has been enlisted into the Olympic cause. An exhibition of modern Chinese paintings at the national art gallery later this month “will show the charm of Chinese culture and the people’s persistent pursuit of the Olympic spirit”.
With an eye on its foreign critics, China has been quick to stress the political and social benefits of hosting the Olympics. Above all, it is said, a successful bid will “enhance human rights” in China but the logic is forced.
As set out by Liu Jianmin, vice-president of the Chinese bid committee, it runs like this: human rights means satisfying the wishes of the Chinese people. The Chinese people wish their bid to succeed. So getting the games will enhance their human rights. QED.
Liu invokes the name of a Beijing taxi driver called Meng Jingshan to reinforce his argument. Meng, we are told, believes the Olympic Games will bring him a better life. “He is fully aware that, as a result of the work done to further the bid, he could move out of his shabby house and into more spacious quarters,” says Liu.
Behind the rhetoric there may be a more compelling argument for Chinese success. This is still a nation that, despite its size and strength, is burdened with memories of a long history during which it was looked down upon by the Western world.
A small Chinese team took part in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, but Beijing was then denied its place under United States Cold War pressure until readmission in 1979. The failure of a 1993 bid for the 2000 Olympics (when the memory of tanks in Tiananmen Square was fresh) rankles.
China took 16 golds in Barcelona and 28 in Sydney. Most Chinese believe it is high time to stage the world’s greatest sporting event. To be denied the opportunity would imply they were still scorned by the wider world, and would certainly cause an upsurge of furious nationalism on the mainland. This, in turn, could see human rights issues in China getting even shorter shrift amid a new mood of intransigence. Awarding China the Olympic Games will be good for democracy. QED again.
Support for China’s bid, it would appear, also transcends cross-straits tensions with Taiwan. A Chinese delegation now visiting Taipei has been assured of the full support of the island’s Olympic committee.
And along Beijing’s central Avenue of Everlasting Peace, where advertisements have been banned since it was revamped for the millennium, an exception is made for Olympics propaganda. The approved slogan is “New Beijing, New Olympics” (translated into English as “New Beijing, Great Olympics”, avoiding the implication that China is remaking the games and its capital city).
Pro-Olympics events are a regular occurrence, with recent delights including a “bird protection week” (visitors to a Beijing park were allowed to set free wild birds), a joint musical performance staged with singers from South Korea (the most popular song was called Enthusiasm), and delivery of a cloth roll with 11 000 signatures from Hainan island (where the United States spy plane came down) in favour of the bid.
A 36-year-old farmer in Hunan province has made a hot-air balloon in which he plans to ascend to demonstrate his enthusiasm for the bid.
Conscious that transportation snarls have been a strong argument against 2004’s host Athens, Beijing’s promoters say they will ensure the traffic runs freely. Yet another ring road an Olympics ring road, of course is promised to link the main venues, although the prospect does not excite those who believe the existing four ring roads have already created a soulless car-dominated urban landscape.
Meanwhile Jiang Xiaoyu, another vice- president of the bid committee, paints a vision of a “high-tech Olympics” that will extend from the stadium into the homes of every Beijing citizen. The venues will, he says, be lit and powered by solar energy, with the latest building techniques used to save water and power.
A broad-band digital system will transmit the events live into Beijing households, free of charge, and foreign journalists will have the latest equipment at their seats and in their hotel rooms.
This week the city hosted a series of events under the title “Science, civilisation and the Olympic bid”. There were open science forums and lectures on “health-giving exercises”, and one million residents were due to take part in quiz programmes to test scientific knowledge.
For all their undoubted enthusiasm, however, China’s Olympic officials admit to being worried that the US spy plane crisis and adverse publicity surrounding the crackdown on the Falun Gong cult has not helped their chances of landing the games. All they can do is repeat the invocation that “the IOC should not mix politics and sport”.
Several people demonstrated outside the IOC’s headquarters in Lausanne this week demanding, among other things, that Tibet be free before China be given the games. Even the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader, last week declared that China “deserves to be the Olympic host” if it meant better human rights.
In reality, China’s bid is political at the highest level. But it is also genuinely popular among the residents of Beijing and beyond, and a negative verdict on July 13 will undoubtedly cause widespread grief and anger.