Published: August 06, 2008 11:13 am            

MCDONALD: What lies beneath Beijing; looking past the grand Olympic staging

“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” — Deng Xiaoping

• • •

Deng Xiaoping coined the phrase “China will have capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” In short that means that China allows free market activities while subsidizing Chinese businesses and maintaining tight control over their currency.

The burgeoning middle class enjoys luxuries never before seen in China, the other 800 million people are not so lucky.

Let me try to explain what you will see and what you won’t see if you are visiting Beijing for the Olympics.

As you descend through the clouds on initial approach to Beijing you will descend through the Asian Brown Cloud at about 10,000 feet. The cloud is a layer of air pollution that covers parts of the northern Indian Ocean, India, Pakistan and parts of South Asia, Southwest Asia and China. The main cause of the Asian Brown Cloud is the Chinese coal powered electric plants and other industry. Other lesser causes include the automobile traffic across South Asia and the fact that millions of rural people are preparing their food by burning wood and dung.

So far in China, the sentiment has been irresponsibly in favor of polluting, since some Chinese think that it can’t be harmful to pollute just a few years, compared to the western countries, which has polluted for a century.

The Chinese government, in advance of the Olympics, has shut down manufacturing in the area of Beijing for the past four months in an effort to clear the skies. Regardless, odds are that the haze will still cover Beijing for most of the time. If the air is clear you will actually be able to see the Olympic venues from as far away as a few blocks.

In its attempt to be open and welcoming, the Chinese government has provided demonstration areas for protesters. Why that is very nice isn’t it?

Odds are you won’t see many protesters in those areas as protesters pay a consequence. According The Washington Post, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.

Their indefinite detainment, according to relatives and neighbors, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. The Communist Party has made clear that trouble will not be permitted.

“My bet is the authorities won’t let them out until after the Olympics,” said Wang Xiahua, a veteran anti-government agitator from this farm town 180 miles southwest of Beijing and a supporter of the imprisoned farmers.

The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would “not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights.”

Security forces seem determined to prevent dissidents from finding an echo in the media, human rights activists said, particularly the foreign media that have been reinforced in China during the Olympic period. To do so, they said, authorities have devised measures ranging from warnings, intimidation, surveillance, travel restrictions and house arrest to outright detention.

What you will see and hear is nearly every Chinese citizen with whom you come in contact will know at least three words in English; “Welcome to Beijing.” This is the result of a campaign to teach everyone in Beijing to learn those three words to make everyone feel welcome. Even the cab drivers are wearing shirts and ties and smiling.

You won’t see the temporary housing constructed to house all of the people that were displaced by the wrecking ball and construction of Olympic venues. You also won’t see dilapidated neighborhoods as the Chinese government has constructed brick walls around those unsightly hovels. You will see the modern airport terminal and a thriving economy and all the other positives the government wishes you to see.

Essentially what you will see is the Chinese government exercising “face.” The government seeks to save face from criticism by allowing a perception to form in the minds of visitors that China is a country on the move, a burgeoning economic and world power (they hold nearly one tenth of the United States debt).

Deng Xiaoping once said “Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead — but aim to do something big.”

The Olympics is something big just as the Democratic National Convention in 1968 was something big for the late Mayor Daley and the city of Chicago. Just as in China, protests weren’t tolerated by Mayor Daley in Chicago and the police over reacted.

Just like that comparison, the Beijing Olympics will be happening in prime time and in real time for the entire world to see. I pray, that for the sake of the athletes and the spirit of the games that nothing untoward happens during the sixteen days of the Olympics.

However, what lies beneath is a simmering caldron of human rights abuses that the government wants to hide and ignore. It is beyond me that in a modern age of enlightened leadership in the western world that the western nations continue to kow tow to Beijing.

Tim McDonald can be reached at timothy.mcdonald@agsfaculty.indwes.edu

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.