China's Olympic Trials
"Go Red for China!" was the slogan unveiled on the Chinese mainland by Pepsi-Cola, whose ubiquitous blue can will, "for a limited time," be red. Pepsi is just one of many companies advertising at the Olympics, at a cost of up to $6 billion, in an attempt to tap a largely untouched market of more than 1 billion. "You've never seen the Olympics in a market that has such domestic commercial scale," Michael Wood, chief executive for greater China at advertising firm Leo Burnett, told the New York Times. "When the Olympics were in Los Angeles and Atlanta, the U.S. market was already fully developed."
This is the Olympics the West wanted: games where the grandest prize is not a gold medal but a glittering entree to China's seemingly endless army of potential consumers. This is the reason that George W. Bush will attend the opening ceremonies, the first U.S. President to do so on foreign soil, and that in March, mere days before the crackdown in Tibet, Condoleezza Rice, laughably, took China off the State Department's list of nations that abuse human rights.
But if the stakes are high for Western capitalism, for China they may well be higher. Beijing has spent as much as $40 billion to build train stations and Olympic facilities, uprooting more than 1.5 million residents, all in the hope that the games would mark, as the official Xinhua news agency put it, a "historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation."
National renaissance, however, may be giving way to revolt, both internally and from the athletes themselves. The buzz in the lead-up to 8/8/08 is not merely in Beijing. It's in Hunan, Shanghai, Guizhou and earthquake-devastated Sichuan, which have all recently seen mass demonstrations against Communist Party rulers. Provincial authorities are now under extraordinary pressure to crack down on protests. Instructions from Beijing are to "go on a war footing" to head off further upheaval before the games.
The steady percolation of the conflict at home has been matched -- or even exceeded -- by international anger. Athletes, activists and globe-trotting protesters are poised to raise a panoply of issues, including China's crackdown on Tibet, its support for the Sudanese regime and environmental concerns. The Communist Party has been forced to respond to this pressure cooker by opening a steam valve, announcing on July 24 that public protests will be permitted during the games inside three designated city parks. But as the Times reported, "Demonstrators must first obtain permits from local police and also abide by Chinese laws that usually make it nearly impossible to legally picket over politically charged issues."
If Chinese leaders believe that will release enough steam for a smooth games, they could be in for a surprise. Olympic protest may extend beyond the parks. More than 200 athletes from "Team Darfur" may be wearing bracelets and speaking out against human rights abuses. As Jessica Mendoza of the U.S. softball team told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "I don't think it's my place to tell China what to do. But I do think it's my place to tell people what is happening. I want people to know that nearly 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2004." Athletes are also angry that the air quality in what Beijing is calling the "green Olympics" could be hazardous to their health.
A public relations catastrophe could be in the making if dissenters manage to break through the media blockade that runs from Beijing's troubling record on press freedom to NBC's soft news coverage. It should not be China's to bear alone; it should be shared by the Western nations and corporations that got the games they wanted.
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Nice work on the Olympics in this column and the last one on Tommie Smith and John Carlos. What is interesting to me, and perhaps you could explore further, is that many people across the political spectrum, not just on the right, do not want their athletes to be political. But the International Olympic Committee is making explicitly political decisions. They view holding the games in China as a political act to bring China into the Western democratic fold.
"The Communist Party has been forced to respond to this pressure cooker by opening a steam valve, announcing on July 24 that public protests will be permitted during the games inside three designated city parks. But as the Times reported, "Demonstrators must first obtain permits from local police and also abide by Chinese laws that usually make it nearly impossible to legally picket over politically charged issues."
Sounds like the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver.
this Olympic as a whole leave a bad taste in my mouth. First of all its amazing that the right is so diligently protecting the interests of communist China. Not so long ago the red menace was public enemy #1 and now protesters are being torn apart by pundits even thought there is real human suffering occuring.
Also I think its funny how the opening ceremonies are going on live during prime-time here, which means that they are happening at 8 in the morning in not only the host country, but the largest market.
Isn't is amazing how for years our country did as much as possible to make the communist life a living hell by never trading with them, and yet with China, of course there has been a double standard, but now these Olympics are only going to bolster the corrupt Chinese government (I don't have a problem with Communists, but I do have problem with human rights violators and dictatorships) and our great and wise President can't see what good a boycott would do. The Soviets have an Olympics and we steer clear, Chinese...lets go!
I also wish I was one of the higher profile athletes in the games like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Michael Phelps so I could stick it to the man here. Hey IOC, you wanna make money off of me...well I will make sure to have a carefully crafted sign at the perfect time so the cameras can catch it...before, of course, I was kicked out of the Olympic Village...and who knows, jailed by the Chinese government.
Dave hit the nail on the head on this one. The most important thing of all the points is the matter of media coverage. I've already been reading articles about the Olympics and they seem pretty soft. Even the matter of air quality is getting papered over. Our ability to know truly what's going on is the most important and Dave seems to be the only one out there constantly presenting the truth.
I think the greatest rebuke the world community could send to the IOC and China is to simply not watch their games. I think thr stupid nationalism on the Olympics is a relic of the past anyway.
The United States has an uncanny ability to turn enemies into friends if it means we can make a buck.
The fact that few people know what is going on is even more discouraging. From all sides of the political spectrum we hear about the media bias, and the Olympics seem to fit right in, but I'm hearing few complaints.
Dan, the opening ceremonies were held in the evening in China. NBC showed them on tape delay and also did everything they could to shut down access to broadcasters from other countries showing them on-line so as to maximise their viewing numbers.
The problem is that the US broadcasters have been treating the Olympics as a soap opera to delay, edit, and dole out in little snipets for so long that the American public has come to believe that this is how it should be done.
If you have access to the CBC from Canada on your cable or satellite service, I suggest watching their coverage. It's live; it shows more than just competitors from their own nation; and they actually show entire events instead of 20 minutes of a manufactured, "inspirational" story followed by 2 minutes of highlights from the athlete's event.
Interesting seeing Bob Costas interview W for about 15 minutes...I switched on and off until it was over. I did not see much highlighting of the US flag bearer - a Sudanese who became a USCitizen, either. It does seem no one wants atheletes to speak - i.e. Ali, and in the US, Carlos Delgado (against Iraq war) or Etan Thomas (also against war)...it might be refreshing to see human beings, too....
It marks the complete victory of the West over the so called Communist China...without firing a bullet as it were. West will not bother about Tibet, if they are allowed to set up shops in Tibet. That is what is going to happen
V1aJAK Thanks for good post
Nice post.
Keep on blogging! :)
Thanks for all you ideas! I sure will be back to visit your site again so i can learn more.
Thanks for all you ideas! I sure will be back to visit your site again so i can learn more.
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Dave Zirin is the author of the book: "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by
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