The big news of the day is that China has broken the promise it made to hook the IOC and land the Olympics seven years ago. This is only news to those who believed that this could possibly have happened, though seven years out there was at least a modicum of hope that things might turn out differently. It has become increasingly clear over the last few years – and especially over the last several months – that crackdowns, intimidation and re-education are still the most effective tools to control those who believed that things could possibly move in the direction of acceptable civility.
The NYT, and just about everyone else, is reporting the words that Jacques Rogge told the Agence France-Presse two weeks ago: “For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet.” And there will be fair winds and following seas all the way to the closing ceremony, right Jacques?
Over at the China Law Blog, a must read blog for those wanting to keep up with the pitching fields of law in China, five of the links to stories commenting on this most recent bit of high stakes state fibbing are blocked.
The bigger stories of reporting about the oppressive tactics used by the host country will not be coming out until after the Games, when the press who are here have returned home and will feel free to report their experiences without the fear of being further restricted by talking unflatteringly of the host country during the Olympics.
This is a much larger problem for China, since it is pretty clear that there will be international repercussions. Future international events will, no doubt, sidestep China as a host as it becomes perfectly clear that promises at every level are worth little to nothing. Why can’t China see this? Beats me. Beats a lot of others too.
PS: my internet connection in Tianjin has just slowed down to the speed of a late-90s dial-up.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Brian // Jul 31, 2008 at 11:59 am
Great post, as always.
I can’t help but feel that a lot of people around the world must be breathing a sigh of resigned disappointment - myself included. Sure, many naysayers have predicted this since day one, and while at times I let morbid curiosity get the worst of me and wondered how poorly China might meet its promises, or even how bad the actual news surrounding it could get, at the forefront I still always wanted the games to be what many others hoped for - the beginnings of a new path for China.
Having lived here for several years its hard to be passionately critical of the way things are without feeling like a hypocrite. Not that I agree with many, many of the arcane or outdated cultural, political, and economic attitudes and means in this country. Rather, my localized experiences have always drowned out what misgivings I might feel for the higher level policies that seemed to still be enforced in a different country than I was living in. Moreover, the fact that the China I arrived in was significantly more liberal than I expected meant initially I was impressed rather than disappointed in progress that had been made.
As the games have approached, and since the first 6 months of “wow, I’m in China!” euphoria has faded, I’ve found myself seriously baffled at the direction things have been headed. In a way that morbid curiosity I mentioned above is having a joyride, yelling “I told ya so all along!” In the end, however, I think the repercussions that arise from these irrefutably broken promises will cause a lot of people to think twice about coming to live here, work here, travel here, etc. And if they don’t, they probably should - after all, living in this country is a tacit agreement that the policies it pursues are acceptable, if disagreeable to some inconsequential “sensibilities”.
I don’t mean to make a mountain of a molehill (I think these games and all their ups and downs are neither), but it is important to keep in mind that blind faith that a government, any government, will somehow improve autonomously while I (and many others) continue to eek out a paycheck in the gray area called “the interim” has later been judged quite harshly in history. My plans to leave China early next year were made long ago (for completely unrelated reasons), however I always felt strongly that I would return to live here again in the not so distant future - as I’ve mentioned, I have sincerely enjoyed my personal experiences in China. As the bad news continues to mount I feel this once certain desire waning… and again breathe a sigh of resigned disappointed. Its not gone yet, but its certainly not guaranteed to remain.
2 jg // Jul 31, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Good thoughtful comment, and it addresses the fundamental issue that many of us have been dealing with, especially recently: a complicity of presence. This is one that I think will need to be addressed in a longer post, but I think that the current official behavior is showing China in a historically common state of fear, which is the default response to change of any kind. All regime changes have always been violent, which is one of the products of this constant state of fear. I am not suggesting that there is a regime change in the cards, only that they are responding as they always have responded, as if any change might precipitate one. And this is actually not a surprise. Disconcerting, yes, but not a surprise. What it will probably do is cost China dearly, which may, in the future, spur more and deeper-seated positive changes, ones that may be more civil-minded (as in its root civilis: citizen). Recently there has been much made when someone brings up “the rule of law,” but the foundation of that “rule” is that no one is above it. And that’s the only way I see for China to get out of this hole which they are so desperately digging at the moment. China has never had a Magna Carta, or anything that could be misconstrued as one. That’s down an entirely different road. But until they have a look that way, until the basic idea of ‘legal accountability for all’ is addressed, fear will rule each and every day.
I must believe that all this mess will somehow spur change in the years to come. But if that change doesn’t happen, I’m afraid all of us - not only those of us who are here - are in for an uncomfortable future. There is a lot at stake for China to get up to civil speed, and right now they’re not doing a very good job of it, just as everyone’s coming to town. It doesn’t have to be this painful, even though the past tells them that it must, just because it’s always been this way.
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