title: “All That Glitters…” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-12” author: “Christina Noyola”
And, unfortunately, with a lot of past. Offstage at the concert, the new, sunny China reverted to some old, ugly habits. Police detained a ticket scalper–and roughed up an Agence France-Presse photographer who tried to catch the incident on film. The journalist actually got manhandled twice–once while he was photographing, then again when he tried to leave the performance and a hostile crowd gathered to shout anti-U.S. epithets. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman conceded the cops “did not keep their cool,” but she insisted the incident had nothing to do with the Olympics. “We’re not perfect,” concedes Vice Mayor Liu Jingmin, the ever-grinning point man for Beijing’s current bid. But he says hosting the 2008 Games “will help us improve people’s rights [and] the quality of life for Beijing’s citizens.”
That’s also the argument made by Westerners who promote Beijing’s bid. They say it will do much to open up China’s oppressive system (following story). But when the IOC delegates vote to determine the host of the 2008 Games–a decision widely expected to favor Beijing–they will have to ignore a lot of unpleasantness unfolding just offstage in China. Last week Amnesty International reported that China is engaged in “nothing short of an execution frenzy,” with nearly 1,800 prisoners put to death in the past three months alone. That’s more than the people executed in the entire rest of the world in the past three years. The government, meanwhile, is detaining some 30 U.S. passportholders without trial, including several scholars, despite President Bush’s personal intercession with Jiang last week. And Beijing’s ruthless crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual sect continues. Asked about it recently, Liu Jingmin gave his typical resolutely reasonable reply, saying, “Even Falun Gong members can come [to the Games] if they’re athletes.”
And if they’re still alive. In another revelation underscoring the widening gap between Beijing’s glittery PR blitz and its darker reality, it was reported last week that between three and 15 Falun Gong practitioners had died recently–either by suicide or torture–in a labor camp. Paris and Toronto, Beijing’s chief rivals for the Olympics bid, have their own problems. (Toronto’s mayor recently made a foolish wisecrack slandering Africans.) But running a gulag is not among them.
Yes, Beijing has put on a glorious show to win this bid. The government launched a $20 billion environmental cleanup and infrastructure campaign, “one of the greatest building projects undertaken in China since construction of the Great Wall,” as one press release put it. Sydney mobilized 47,000 enthusiastic volunteers for the 2000 Games; Beijing promises to trump that with 600,000, according to Liu, who is executive vice president of the city’s Bid Committee. Mindful of Beijing’s vile pollution, city authorities have also launched a “toilet revolution”–their words–including the construction of dozens of “four-star public toilet facilities” that cost up to $60,000 apiece.
Above all, city officials vow to make Beijing green. They’ve enforced vehicle-emission standards on the city’s vehicles. They plan to shut down or relocate polluting factories, including the vast state-run Capital Iron and Steelworks, which helps cloak the capital in an eye-searing pall of yellow smog. Citizens are being taught to say “thank you” in English and to use a handkerchief in the street (instead of wasting tissues–or spitting at random in traditional Chinese fashion). In the Olympic Village, showers will be heated by geothermal energy, and a triathlon route was designed to protect the habitat of the rare giant salamander.
Such efforts have clearly impressed the Olympic judges. But the neck-wrenching need to look away from China’s worst human-rights abuses points up how cosmetic such changes can be. True, a few compromises may be imminent. On July 5, in their first direct chat ever, Bush called Jiang’s attention to the growing number of Chinese-Americans in mainland jails and asked that they be “treated fairly and returned promptly.” Chinese officials told the State Department that “judicial proceedings” against two prominent academics charged with spying for Taipei–naturalized U.S. citizen Li Shaomin and green-card holder Gao Zhan–had already begun. Formal trials were expected to commence this month. If things go according to precedent, Li and Gao can expect to be convicted and then quickly sent back to the United States just before a significant bilateral event–such as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s scheduled visit to Beijing at the end of the month.
Yet Beijing’s mandarins have a habit of putting their worst foot forward. The Politburo may desperately want the Olympics as a prestige-booster. But its members are even more jittery about their grip on power, especially as they face a tussle over leadership succession. Five of the seven most influential leaders, including Jiang, are slated to relinquish key posts next year. Most of them are trying to install successors whose staying power is far from assured. To eliminate instability during the delicate transition, party commissars have reined in the domestic media and heightened efforts to police the Internet. They have also launched a nationwide anti-crime “Strike Hard” campaign that’s netted offenders including pimps, fake-goods vendors and tax evaders: hence the recent boom in the execution industry.
But it’s not easy lashing 1.3 billion people into line. And if Beijing is awarded the Games, the regime’s difficulties will be on display for all the world to see. Every now and again, as if to reveal the pressure the mandarins are under, their cheery mask slips. In early April even the polished Liu Jingmin fell into old habits. He warned that “if we don’t get the Games it will not be good for communication” between East and West. The Games may be China’s to lose, but his threatening tone suggested Beijing still has something to learn, at least, about being a good sport. The question is whether a seven-year crash course can do the trick.
