Games over

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Aug 26th 2008
From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire

Mixed political results from the Beijing Olympics


Having held the world's attention for the past 17 days, Beijing symbolically handed the Olympic flag to London in a closing ceremony on August 24th. As a sporting event the Games were a huge success—particularly for China, which topped the gold-medal table by a wide margin. But the government's success in achieving its political objectives was mixed.

Domestic success
Billed as China's "coming-out party", the Beijing Games were meant to burnish the country's image both at home and abroad by showcasing the country's remarkable achievements over the past three decades. There is little doubt that this message came across loud and clear domestically, helping to cement the loyalty of China's citizens. The popular legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party increasingly derives from its ability to deliver material prosperity and international prestige, and the Olympics showed that the regime is capable of marshalling extraordinary resources and determination—and that China commands international respect. Beijing's spectacular opening and closing ceremonies, state-of-the-art venues and flawlessly organised sporting events all underlined the country's extraordinarily rapid re-emergence as a great power.

The point was driven home when China followed up its dazzling opening ceremony with an unprecedented demonstration of sporting dominance. The host country won 51 gold medals, dethroning the US as the world's sporting superpower. Some pundits have been quick to see this as a metaphor for China's global ambitions, predicting a revival of the sort of geopolitically tinged sporting rivalry that developed between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Interestingly, though, in 2008 China rocketed to the top of the gold-medal table partly by dominating sports in which the US is traditionally weak. In the geopolitical metaphor, this would seem to underline China's reassuring message of the positive-sum dynamic underlying its rise.

International ambivalence
In the final analysis, however, China's efforts to impress and reassure the rest of the world through the Olympics had mixed results. To be sure, the international press was dazzled by Beijing's gleaming new stadiums and subways, and sporting officials were full of praise for the organisation of the athletic competitions. But there was also plenty of criticism. The opening ceremony was marred in the eyes of some when it emerged that the live broadcast had incorporated pre-recorded fireworks footage, and that a centrepiece song was lip-synched. The government's security crackdown ahead of the Games also took a toll on the party atmosphere, as most Olympics-related festivities were confined to private venues or to the sealed-off area surrounding the main venues. All this suggested to many observers that the flip-side of China's Olympian perfectionism was an obsession with control.

China also disappointed those who thought that the Olympics would spur the government to open up politically. The government appeared to break promises to allow full media freedom and public protests during the Games. Foreign journalists were denied unfettered access to the Internet, and at least one reporter was roughed up and detained after attempting to film a brief pro-Tibet protest. Expectations that China would allow public protests and that these would potentially disrupt the Games proved unfounded. The government claimed to have allowed freedom of assembly during the Games by setting up several dedicated protest zones. But none of the nearly 80 applications for a permit to protest in the zones was approved. Instead the government arrested a number of the applicants, including two septuagenarian women who face a year of "re-education through labour" because they applied to protest against the demolition of their homes.

Mixed verdict
The government's harsh treatment of potential dissenters not only demonstrates the seriousness of its fears about social unrest, but it also suggests that the regime will continue to prioritise domestic stability over its international image. So it's hardly surprising that in political terms the Olympics were more of a success at home than abroad. If the Games have underlined China's burgeoning power and dynamism, they have also highlighted the gulf in political values between China and the world's democracies. As a result, the Beijing Games will be remembered not only as an unprecedentedly impressive spectacle, but also as a controversial event that failed fully to dispel international apprehension about China's rise.