As thousands of visitors begin to arrive in China’s capital, large numbers of Beijing’s residents are disappearing from view.
Hundreds of thousands of the migrant workers who built Olympic venues and beautified the city have already been sent home. Now Beijingers whose homes don’t meet the organisers’ high standards are being hidden behind walls and screens.
Last week, the city even offered residents sartorial advice. Combining more than three colours or teaming white socks with black shoes are off-limits.
When authorities can’t re-dress, repaint or replant eyesores, they conceal them. Temporary barriers now obstruct housing and shops as well as building sites and wasteland.
”They think it will make a bad impression on foreigners,” explained Yan, gesturing at his one-storey home in south Beijing. A new barrier, covered in Olympics artwork, ensures that it cannot be seen from one main route into the city.
Close by, a woman instructed a volunteer district warden to call if he saw any foreign journalists. ”They are not allowed to take photos here,” she said.
Along the road, shopkeeper Li gazed at a two-metre wall. Outside, it is plastered smooth and painted grey, with stencilled Olympic logos. On the inside, concrete spurts between uneven brickwork indicate the speed with which it was constructed 10 days earlier. ”It’s bound to affect my business,” he said. ”But there’s no point complaining, because the authorities decided to do it. I just hope it will come down afterwards.”
A sign on the shoe shop next door advertised its last day of trading.
”What’s the point in staying? No one can even see my shop anymore,” said its owner.
Beijing’s measures reflect an international pattern of urban regeneration in which ”people are decanted and taken away” if they do not fit the image that governments seek, said Rob Imrie, professor of geography at King’s College London. Efforts step up when major events are involved.
”Look at how sanitised the G8 summits are … it’s clear that certain individuals are not welcome … but also that those involved are not supposed to see certain parts of their environment.”
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of migrant workers have already left — displaced by the closure of building sites and factories to cut pollution, but also by tougher residence and security checks.
Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, said: ”A lot of migrant workers are really second-class citizens — there’s no room for them in … shiny new Beijing.”
Last month, Reuters reported that dozens of recycling stations would close for the games, after a report from a Beijing government adviser urged officials to ”convince” the 170 000 rubbish collectors to return home until later in the year.
The Xinhua news agency quoted labourers describing the departure as a necessary sacrifice. —