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After the Games, China must face reality
Published 21 August 2008
It's time for Beijing's bureaucrats to turn their attention to the real problems facing the country
Journalists make poor prophets, but I think I'm on safe ground here: early next week the Chinese government will declare that the Olympics have been a roaring success. The International Olympic Committee - an organisation only marginally less authoritarian than the Chinese Communist Party - will agree. Someone will say, "It was the best Olympics ever."
Then, maybe, the bureaucrats who run the country will feel secure enough to stop worrying about how China looks to the outside world and will turn their attention to the real problems affecting the Chinese people. In their fervour to stage a good Olympics, the country's rulers have equated the national image with the national interest. So, anything deemed unsightly - old buildings, people with awkward opinions, the poor - has been destroyed or swept out of sight.
The result has been a Potemkin Olympics, where visitors have seen a gleaming Olympic Village full of happy volunteers and cheering fans, while the complex reality of a flawed but dynamic society has been obscured.
The passion and pain with which Chinese people experienced sporting triumph and disappointment exposed just how deeply confused image and interest have become. Tan Zongliang, who won bronze in the 50m air-pistol shooting contest, told a Chinese journalist that he felt like a failure. "I have been nurtured by my country, yet I have let my country down," he said.
Huang Yubin, head coach of the national gymnastics team, said he would commit suicide if his team won only one gold medal. When they swept the board, he said, "Thank you for not letting me jump."
The entire country wept when China's great hope in the hurdles, Liu Xiang, limped off injured. "When he won the gold medal in 2004, he earned honour not only for China, but also for Asia," said a 16-year-old schoolgirl, walking past one of the ubiquitous images of Liu advertising Nike running shoes. "After him, the world looked at China differently."
Most of the world was in fact oblivious to Liu's gold medal triumph in the 2004 Athens Games. But perception creates its own reality, and the Olympics have given China reason to feel more confident. They have not, however, changed the internal dynamics of the country. The 1988 Olympics in Seoul are often cited as an example of how the Games can help a country become more democratic. The South Korean government wanted the world to see it as an emerging dem ocracy, not a dictatorship, so it made real political changes. That has not happened in China.
Susan Shirk, a former US state department official, says that Chinese and Americans have differing reactions to her new book, China: the Fragile Superpower. Americans usually say: "What do you mean, 'fragile'?" Chinese say, "What do you mean: 'superpower'?" In America and Europe, China's superpower status is often presented as a fait accompli, as if there were no longer - according to World Bank figures - 300 million people living in poverty, and a bureaucracy battling to manage its new-found diplomatic and economic reach. The Chinese, by contrast, are only too aware of how difficult it is to shoot to stardom so quickly, how great are the tensions created by rapid economic growth.
Pulling off a successful Olympics may have enabled the Chinese government to feel more secure about its standing in the world, but if outsiders judge China only by the shimmering opening and closing ceremonies, they will find its coming struggles hard to comprehend.
The public figure who appears most in sympathy with the needs of ordinary people is Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, or "Grandpa Wen", as he became known after visiting earthquake victims in Sichuan in May. He has been noticeably absent from the Olympic festivities, while the rather formal and distant president, Hu Jintao, and his heir apparent, Xi Jinping, have attended several events. But Wen's touch is needed now.
With inflation above 6 per cent, and the world economy slowing, the government has a number of complex economic problems to solve. Senior party officials know they must address the growing gap between rich and poor, and endemic corruption, before discontent gets out of hand. The government has silenced dissenters by locking them up during the Games, but soon they will have to let out at least a few and deal with some of the issues they raise.
The Chinese government is in no way democratic, but its rapid and effective response to the earthquake indicates that it is accountable. When things go wrong, people expect their officials to respond. Chinese people took on the Olympics as a civic duty and a matter of national pride. Most appear to have enjoyed it, but now they may start to demand that the government concentrate on their needs, rather than trying to impress foreigners.
Lindsey Hilsum is China correspondent for Channel 4 News
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