Stifling of dissent tarnishes the gold

By Geoff Dyer 2008-08-25
http://www.ftchinese.com/story.php?lang=en&storyid=001021529

World records galore, magnificent stadiums, cleanish air and the seemingly inevitable victory for the Chinese team: as the Olympics nears its Sunday close, almost everything that could have gone right has done so.

Yet for all the successes, the authorities have also risked an own goal with the way they have dealt with dissent. The Olympic Games have demonstrated just how much China has been transformed over the past three decades, but have also exposed important ways the country has not changed.

With China winning so many golds, the domestic audience has been entranced. After a bruising few months, China is experiencing its third wave of national unity this year – first through anger at foreigners over Tibet and the torch relay, then in grief after the Sichuan earthquake and now in pride at the huge medal haul.

Zhang Yimou, the film director who designed the spectacular opening ceremony, summed up the mood of national ebullience when he said only China could achieve the strict discipline and technology needed to pull off such a spectacle: “If you think about it, no other country can achieve this in the world.”

Most foreign visitors to the capital – and many television viewers around the world – have been awed by the stadiums, impressed by the level of organisation and charmed by the polite and earnest Olympics volunteers.

Two big factors – pollution and chauvinistic nationalism – that could have undermined the games and damaged China's image proved to be non-events. A mixture of emergency measures on car usage and factory closures, together with wind and rain in the first week, washed away the pollution.

The marathon world record-holder Haile Gebrselassie admitted he was wrong to withdraw from the race in Beijing for fear pollution would spark his asthma. “I'm surprised. What do you expect from me? I was here in February, I didn't see no blue sky,” he said. “Since I came here everything is perfect.”

After the fierce emotions sparked by the disrupted torch relay, some observers feared controversy at the games would prompt another wave of anti-foreigner nationalism. However, the Chinese crowds have largely been polite and generous.

Xu Guoqi, a Chinese historian based in the US who wrote a book about China's relationship with the Olympics, says the games could have an important impact on the Chinese psyche.

“One of the lasting impacts is that Chinese will feel more confident of themselves as a nation and put the sense of inferiority behind them,” he says. “China could become less sensitive about foreign criticism and more willing to recognise weaknesses.”

Yet the Beijing games have also brought out some of the least attractive realities of the Chinese system: the way ordinary citizens with views considered awkward can be steamrollered.

Before the games began, the authorities announced the creation of three protest zones in parks around the city for citizens to hold officially approved demonstrations. Yet some who applied to protest have found themselves in jail or have disappeared and the authorities say they have yet to approve a single protest.

In what appears to be the most egregious case, two elderly Chinese women who applied to protest about the loss of their homes were sentenced to a year of “re-education through labour”, their families and a human rights group said.

“Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of re-education through labour can she serve?” Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women, told the Associated Press. Beijing Public Security Bureau refused to comment on the case.

In the eyes of some foreign media, the treatment of such would-be protesters has tarnished the reputation of the Beijing games. According to one article in Der Spiegel, the German magazine: “This country [China] has hijacked the games, merely to celebrate and congratulate itself.”

Beijing's Olympics have dazzled but not seduced everyone.