The Age, August 15, 2008
It was a miscalculation by the West and the IOC to expect China to conduct the Games as they would expect other hosts to conduct them.
A WEEK ago, an estimated 4 billion television viewers were enthralled and captivated by the most spectacular Olympic Games opening ceremony in the movement's history. China put on a show that overwhelmed the efforts of past hosts and is unlikely to be rivalled by any future host nation. It was, as Age writer Greg Baum wrote from Beijing, "the greatest show on Earth".
A week later, the world is discovering how much of a show. It should not be surprised. China is what it is. There will be no apologies from Beijing about that. If there has been a miscalculation in expectations then it is the fault of the International Olympic Committee and Western countries. Both believed that in the granting of the Games to China, in the preparation for them and in the conducting of them over these two weeks, Beijing would change; a little light from the West would fall over the faces of the members of the Politburo and enlightenment would shine through. It was naive in the extreme.
As the past week has shown, the greater cause to China of these Games is to project to the world what it perceives its image to be. But as this week has also shown, there will always be flaws in the glass. The most glaring came in the shape of a nine-year-old girl, Lin Miaoke. When 4 billion people saw Miaoke in her red dress singing so guilelessly, they were entranced. It was a moment of small, intense delight amid a huge spectacle. But it was an illusion. The voice was of another girl, Yang Peiyi, aged 7. And the reason? China's national interest.
A Politburo member said: "The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings and expression. Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in the aspect of voice, Yang Peiyi is flawless." So China, in effect, combined the two girls to present to the world the perfect child. It may have been superb television, but it wasn't the real thing, and trying to find the real thing in China is a Herculean task. No more so than in trying to report without official impairment. In China, the censors really do work overtime.
The IOC, and its president Jacques Rogge, need to accept some of the blame in this for raising hopes that China would free up its internet restrictions for the Games. It reluctantly did for the foreign press for some websites, but as The Age reported yesterday its muzzle on its own media is severe and repressive. China has issued a 21-point guide to the local media on what to report and what not to report during the Games. Forbidden subjects include Tibet, Falun Gong, the three official protest parks, emergencies inside Games venues and food safety issues such as cancer-causing mineral water. Of the 21 directives, No. 9 suffices to go to the heart of the matter: "In regard to the three protest parks, no interviews and coverage is allowed."
It is not surprising then that no one has applied to the authorities (as one must to protest at the parks). To admit that there are matters on which to protest is to admit to flaws in the society, and thus in the image.
However, the Chinese censors have no control over the impressions making their way to the world of an Olympic Games that has had the life, fun and spontaneity sucked out of it. Dour has been the adjective of choice to describe the atmosphere. So enervated have some of the venues become that authorities are using armies of volunteers to inject some "spontaneity" to the events. John Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, says organisers "haven't been able to manage the balance between security and creating that atmosphere" of euphoria and enthusiasm.
Mr Coates is right, yet no one should be surprised at the imbalance towards security. China, in scrubbing its streets clean of every possible type of societal infection and blemish, may have caused outrage and indignation in the West, but as a one-party state, it is only doing what is in its nature to do. While it has embraced capitalism, so much so that in a few decades it is expected to overhaul the United States as the world's major economic power, changes in its society are slow to moribund. China's President Hu Jintao has pledged political reforms after the Games, but it is the nature of power that those wielding it never willingly give it up.
There is the feeling that these Games are being played in a hermetically sealed dome. Yet no country can have absolute control over everything. The world goes on. Small wars in Georgia, for instance, may erupt. The show, also, goes on. Fabulous in achievement, flawed in execution.