Why China Has the Torch
Victor Fraile/Reuters
IN THE AIR With the Olympic Games set to begin in
Beijing on Friday, concerns remain over the air quality. Pollution is
among the issues weighing over these Games.
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: August 3, 2008
“One World, One Dream,” is the official motto of
the Beijing Olympics that open Friday, but the world has become
considerably more complicated since the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2008 Summer Games to China seven years ago.
That was long before China’s
crackdown on Tibet this spring, before its support for the government
of Sudan became an international issue and before air pollution became
so threatening that the Ethiopian world-record holder in the marathon
thought it better to run a shorter distance to protect his lungs. It
was also before the events of last week, when China restricted Internet
access for reporters covering the Games (only to lift some restrictions
following an uproar from the news media) and accused American lawmakers
of “odious conduct” for making an issue of its human rights record.
The I.O.C. was well aware of the risks when it awarded the Summer Games
to Beijing in 2001. But committee members believed in the inherent
power of the Games — that they could foster change by focusing world
attention on China, just as the 1988 Summer Games in South Korea helped
advance that country’s transition to democracy. Now the question
looming as China prepares for the opening ceremonies is whether the
committee made the right bet or took too lightly the possibility that
protests or unforeseen events could divide rather than unite the
nations whose athletes are gathering in Beijing. Seven years ago,
the prevailing attitude within the I.O.C. was that the world’s most
populous nation deserved to host the world’s largest sporting event.
China, after all, had acted with restraint after losing by two votes to
Sydney, Australia, to host the 2000 Summer Games, even when the
deciding votes turned out to have essentially been bought.
Speaking in 2001 about the political question, François Carrard, then
the I.O.C.’s director general, said: “We are totally aware there is one
issue on the table, and that is human rights. Either you say because of
some serious human rights issues, we close the door, deliver a vote
that is regarded as a sanction and hope things evolve better. The other
way is to bet on openness. We are taking the bet that we will see many
changes.” Parsing the impact of the seven-year buildup is
difficult. Even before its selection for the Olympics, China was,
gradually, becoming more open for ordinary people. Yet, today, rights
to free speech and assembly remain sharply restricted, ethnic
minorities are repressed, the Communist Party dominates, and, in a
report last week, Amnesty International said progress on human rights had been limited. In
some other ways, the bet has already paid off. Perhaps no other
Olympics has been so intensely anticipated. China provides a shiny new
wrapping on a package damaged by scandal, doping, the disappearance of
Cold War rivalries and diminished public interest. “The Games are going
to Beijing because it’s a show; the spectacle lives on and needs new
and exciting places,” said Kevin Wamsley, a former director of the
International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western
Ontario. Another wish might be fulfilled — that giving China a
home-field advantage would blunt the political and sporting dominance
that the United States gained with the fall of the Soviet Union.
“We need China to act as a check on the U.S.,” Ivan Slavkov, then an
I.O.C. member from Bulgaria, said in 2001. “The U.S. is the only
superpower. It dominates everything, including the Olympics and the
medal tables.” As the Games approach, though, the Olympic
committee faces criticism — from without and within — for relying too
much on chance and not enough on leverage in trying to hold Chinese
leaders to their amorphous statements about change. Jacques Rogge,
the Belgian surgeon who is president of the I.O.C., has given wildly
divergent responses to the human rights issue, saying that he was
engaging in “silent diplomacy,” before switching tactics under pressure
and publicly reminding the Chinese authorities that they pledged to use
the Olympics “to advance the social agenda of China, including human
rights.” No one would claim that he possesses the diplomatic skills of
his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch. Clearly, Dr. Rogge has been ill at ease in defining the I.O.C. as both a political lobby and a sports organization.
The Olympic committee did not sufficiently use its influence in setting
markers for the Chinese to achieve on some issues, especially press
freedoms during the Games, said Dick Pound,
a committee member from Montreal, who stressed that he was speaking in
general and not specifically about Dr. Rogge, whom he opposed in 2001
for the presidency of the organization. “You can’t say, ‘You’ve got to free Tibet or embrace Falun Gong,’ ”
Mr. Pound said. “And I’m not convinced that the way to get China to
respond positively is to splash headlines in the Western press. But
certainly some things are not so sensitive that they can’t even be
discussed. We probably should have said, ‘Here are some minimum things
we do need.’ ” It was also a mistake, Mr. Pound said, to hold an
international torch relay, which resulted in protests on the issue of
Tibet. “We should have seen that coming a mile away,” he said.
Even a more forceful I.O.C., however, would have had only a limited
impact in persuading the Chinese to improve their record on human
rights, many experts contend. The Olympics generally don’t undermine
governments. Historically, strong regimes have used the Games to foment
nationalism and become stronger, the most infamous example being Hitler
and the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin. Intense media scrutiny ebbs when
the Games end. And corporate sponsors are loathe to criticize the host
country for fear of risking developing markets, especially one as
lucrative as China’s. “From the very beginning, the Olympics
were exploited by the ruling classes of the nations in which they were
held,” David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian, wrote in “The Complete
Book of the Olympics.” I.O.C. delegates “support nationalism and they
support the ruling elites of the various nations of the world, no
matter if they are Communist or capitalist.” Last week, Mr.
Wallechinsky was quoted by The Associated Press as saying of the
Beijing Games that “there is so much money being made, the I.O.C. has
turned a blind eye.” Other Olympic historians see more salutary potential in placing the Games in China.
One frequently cited example is South Korea. The country’s military
dictatorship agreed to sweeping democratic changes a year before
hosting the 1988 Summer Games in a decision forced by street protests,
United States pressure, concern about the South Korean economy and fear
that a crackdown would jeopardize the Olympics. The I.O.C. can
also claim a role in ending apartheid by banning South Africa from the
Games from 1964 to 1992. The ban was the longest boycott of that
country by the international community, furthering its isolation. It
ended only after South Africa agreed to abolish apartheid and integrate
the nation’s sports federations. “The I.O.C. members I know most
closely were never so naïve to think that China would be Korea all over
again,” said John MacAloon, an Olympic historian at the University of Chicago.
“What they are counting on is that 20,000 reporters wandering around,
and China’s experience having hosted the world, would perhaps lead the
central authorities to realize they can afford greater tolerance and
discourse without descending into chaos.” Given that hope, the I.O.C. would almost certainly choose Beijing again if it had the chance at a do-over.
“It’s a risk worth taking,” Mr. Pound said. “The Games will be well
delivered. You hope good will come from it. I don’t think any closed
country that has hosted the Olympic Games has been the same thereafter.
It can’t be.” | 
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发表于 2008-8-3 10:51 PM
Times journalists and special contributors explore the Olympics in
Beijing and on the Web from every angle — the politics, the culture and
the competition.
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发表于 2008-8-3 10:54 PM
