One year from now, the summer Olympic games will be underway in China. Tens of thousands of athletes from over 200 nations will be participating in the world’s largest international sporting event.
The games could, as many observers predict, mark a new chapter in China’s economic coming out to the world. But it also presents a grand opportunity for a country with a dismal human rights record to try and fool the world that it’s actually changing.
China is undergoing a sweeping and very expensive cosmetic transformation designed to present a sanitized front to the world and impress millions of Olympic visitors and viewers. But it will mean little if the world’s most populous nation continues to disregard human rights, the environment and other problems once the cameras are turned away.
For now, China is spending billions of dollars to promote its economy and culture and showcase itself by building a new airport, replacing Beijing’s rickety taxi fleet with new Hyundai sedans and shamelessly plowing under historic neighborhoods and replacing them with modern buildings. A million cars will be banned from the city in an effort to reduce the choking smog that blankets the city. Some 200 million trees are being planted to absorb the carbon dioxide.
Before being awarded the Olympic games in 2001, China made promises to improve in the human rights arena. Yet the country still imprisons more journalists – and Internet users – than any other nation.
The promises led to global expectations that awarding China the games would help it clean up its act. But human rights advocates say China has done almost nothing in that regard. Dozens of journalists remain in prison accused of crimes such as “subversion.”
While China has agreed to loosen its rules on foreign journalists traveling there to cover the games, it has cracked down on domestic journalists and activists.
“Instead of a pre-Olympic ‘Beijing spring’ of greater freedom and tolerance of dissent, we are seeing the gagging of dissidents, a crackdown on activists, and attempts to block independent media coverage,” Human Rights Watch said last week.
The Olympics will not be a panacea, but we hope the games and the international attention will serve as a catalyst for needed reform in the country with an exploding economy. Just as China is using the games to promote its “revival,” according to Beijing’s communist party chief, it is right that China’s flaws also be exposed.
All the shiny new taxis, modern buildings and even Olympic medals will do little for China’s image if it continues to ignore human rights and other glaring problems when the world turns its attention elsewhere.
