This Op-Ed was published in
the Philadelphia Inquirer on July 23, 2001, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
and the Hartford Courant on July 22, and The Plain Dealer on
July 18.
It also ran on July 29 in the Baltimore Sun and San Francisco
Chronicle.
Going for the Gold
By Steve Friess
BEIJING - Filthy air. Undrinkable water. Natives
hocking wads of phlegm on the sidewalks. Roads crammed with
incessantly honking cabbies who can't speak English and refuse
to run their air on blistering summer days.
Sure sounds like a place to hold an Olympics.
For a moment, set aside the human-rights problems
in the world's most populated nation. Forget about the Tibetan
Buddhists and Chinese Catholics, both of whom have seen the
Communist regime take over their religions and install leaders
of their own.
Ignore the fact that 150 million people live
on the streets because, having been born in the countryside
and being thus prohibited from ever living in the cities, they've
flocked there anyway undocumented to find work.
And don't even mention the mowing down of the
liberty-seeking thousands in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Old news.
Get over it.
The International Olympic Committee did. And
now, despite the obvious flaws that few can miss when they visit,
the world will descend upon Beijing in 2008 for some good ol'
apolitical athletic activities.
Yet, when the free champagne stops flowing and
the local "media" return to their typical mouthpiece
duties of bashing the United States and Japan, those who were
swept up in rooting for this accomplishment may wake to the
reality that this could be a huge fiasco.
The odds are this country will fail. Perhaps
that's why the Bush administration and Congress opted not to
actively oppose the Beijing bid in the end. If China does well,
it will be because it spent the next seven years becoming more
like America. If it doesn't, the world's only aspiring superpower
will have vanquished itself, and the United States can rest
on its laurels again.
There are many lovely people and places in Beijing.
It is true that China is changing - rapidly and for the better.
And the Chinese people are unfairly misunderstood across the
globe, certainly by those who imagine an overt police state
with soldiers on every corner.
But this remains a rugged place to visit, a
place where people casually clear their throats onto the sidewalks.
Where grubby children as young as 5 run amok at 2 a.m. outside
the bars that cater to Westerners begging for morsels. Where
sunrises and sunsets are impossible to see behind a sheen of
smog that makes Los Angeles seem pristine.
It is a dirty, still unmodern town, not a place
to go out in your fur and pearls. Heck, you can hardly even
find a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
Much has been made of the fact that China started
preparing for the 2008 Olympics earlier than anybody else ever
has, but it also has an awful lot to fix. This has to be the
first time the IOC has awarded the Olympics to a place based
on the entirely different city it promises to become from what
it was when it was selected.
Seven years hardly seems enough time for the
transformation Beijing claims to have in store. Yes, they've
budgeted $22 billion for roads, facilities and environment efforts,
which sounds like a lot, but this sprawling city has 13 million
people in it - think Chicago times four - a healthy percentage
of whom walk past mounds of decaying, unbagged trash in their
alleys to get to their outhouse shower.
More than likely, China's answer will be to
attempt the typical sleight-of-hand that got it this far. The
IOC apparently didn't notice, for instance, that the government
ordered a shutdown of all factories during its assessment visit
in February, magically producing blue skies. It also painted
the dead grass green outside the IOC hotels, giving off an unnaturally
verdant image for a city then in the throes of a bitter winter.
The Olympics will be different. They can't shut
down the factories for two whole weeks to clear the air. They
can't send every cabbie to charm school. (Driving school should
come first, anyway.) And, truth be told, they cannot fix traffic
problems so that racing from a hotel at the center of town to
the badminton competition will be pain-free.
It was heartening to witness the spontaneous,
genuine celebrations in Tiananmen on decision night and to listen
to the Chinese people rejoice that they've finally earned the
respect of the world. China scholars and economists will say
that China's entry into the World Trade Organization later this
year will have a more significant, longer-lasting impact on
the nation's future and place in the world.
But WTO entry won't stoke national pride like
this, won't garner President Jiang Zemin, widely disliked by
the average Chinese, the sort of adulation he enjoyed when waving
from the veranda of the entrance to the Forbidden City that
night.
Indeed, what is now heartening could turn heartbreaking.
Neither the people nor their government has any idea what they're
up against, the enormous risk they've taken, the price they
could pay for humiliation in 2008. That said, look how far they've
come in a dozen years. On July 13, hundreds of thousands of
people again assembled in Tiananmen - and there wasn't a single
tank in sight.
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