HONG KONG - A year ago this week, China was on its way to staging the most
spectacular Summer Olympic Games in history, while piling up more gold medals,
51, than any other country. The rest of the world looked on in awe and envy as
Beijing turned cynical predictions of Olympic embarrassment and disaster into a
stunning international coming-out party.
Not even China's serial detractors could find fault with the Games. The only
complaint was that they were too perfect. Some say this demonstrated an
obsession with imagery and precision that showed the nation was, deep down,
terrified of falling flat on its face before a world audience.
There was no such humiliation, however. Instead, The Games
turned out to be everything for which the Chinese leadership and people had
hoped.
For anyone passing through the Chinese capital today, the Olympic architecture
that has come to symbolize a modern, progressive China - the "Bird's Nest"
National Stadium and the "Water Cube" National Aquatics Center - are standard
tourist stops, striking monuments to China's ascendancy into the first rank of
nations.
While there has been no subsequent matching architecture, the nation's
ascendancy has accelerated in its post-Olympic glow. The fireworks and mass
choreography are now only a memory, but in a much subtler way these past 12
months have seen China's influence continue to grow.
The standard Western analysis of China's position in the world tends to follow
a predictable formula: thumbs-up on the economy, wait-and-see on the commitment
to fighting climate change, and thumbs decidedly down on human rights, media
freedoms and political reform. "Mixed results" is the easy, favored short
answer.
Pundits can write such assessments and prompt little disagreement, because
China still has far to go to become a fully developed nation. But the reality
is that the trend in every important aspect of its development is positive.
A year ago, Beijing's Olympic planners and athletes astonished the world. The
post-Olympic show, while not so spectacular, has nonetheless also been
impressive.
The signs are everywhere.
Driven by economic concerns, the European Union had no qualms about putting
aside formerly thorny differences with Beijing at the latest Sino-EU summit,
held in May in Brussels. A previously scheduled meeting was canceled after
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with the Dalai Lama and other European
leaders voiced concerns over China's Tibet policy in particular and
human-rights record in general.
In the US, the once commonplace charge that Beijing is guilty of "currency
manipulation" has dropped off the diplomatic table.
Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary in the George W Bush administration, made a
habit of lecturing Beijing on the merits of allowing the Chinese currency, the
yuan, to float freely in the big, bad world of international finance, but
China's leaders fobbed him off.
In his confirmation hearings before the US Senate in January, current Treasury
chief Timothy Geithner appeared to sound a harder line, pledging that Bush's
successor, President Barack Obama, would use "all diplomatic avenues" to
pressure China into a fairer currency regime.
But that was then, and this is now. After Geithner's initial bluster, there has
been no further mention of currency manipulation in the Sino-American dialogue.
Fears among Chinese leaders that Obama would take a more aggressive stance
toward China than his predecessor on a host of issues - from currency
manipulation to human rights - have melted away as the US struggles through a
deep recession that has left its banking industry in a shambles and 9.4% of its
workforce without a job.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy grew 7.9% in the second quarter of this year.
With China now holding US$1 trillion in US Treasury Bonds, Washington is hardly
in a position to lecture Beijing about anything. A beggar's posture may be more
appropriate - although in actuality the relationship has taken on the tone of
one between equals over the first six months of the Obama presidency.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has publicly demanded that the US "guarantee the
safety" of Beijing's US investments, and the governor of the People's Bank of
China, Zhou Xiaochuan, used April's Group of 20 summit to call for the
replacement of the US dollar as the global currency - another sign of China's
increasing assertiveness in world affairs.
On the US side, prior to the G-20 meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
three-day visit to Beijing in February struck a determined note of cooperation.
Moreover, at the latest round of the Sino-US strategic dialogue, held in
Washington last month, Obama went further than any previous president in
stressing China's new place in the American psyche.
"The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st
century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the
world," the president said.
Obama also made a point of broadening what had previously been an exclusively
economic dialogue to include other key issues, such as climate change and North
Korea's production of nuclear weapons.
The president's heightened emphasis on relations with China has even given rise
to speculation among some analysts that a new Group of 2 world order is on the
horizon. China still lags far behind the US and Europe (but is rapidly catching
up with Japan) in world gross product, so this remains just speculation.
China faces daunting challenges of its own that are downplayed internationally
because of its mounting economic clout during the global downturn.
Last month's riots in the restive autonomous region of Xinjiang, which left
nearly 200 people dead and more than 1,700 injured, are a case in point. The
riots were sparked by ethnic tensions between Uyghurs, a largely Muslim people
who are a majority in the region, and the Han Chinese, who have migrated to the
capital city of Urumqi, taking most of the better jobs. The central government
fears that Uyghur extremists have a separatist agenda and will use terrorism to
that end.
At the Olympics, ethnic minorities were dressed in traditional costumes and
paraded through the magnificent Bird's Nest stadium as a colorful and welcome
part of a diverse nation. In reality, many ethnic minorities, not just Uyghurs,
feel culturally alienated and entirely left out of China's enormous, prolonged
economic boom.
When Uyghur frustrations boiled over in Urumqi (or, in another example, when
Tibetans rioted ahead of the Olympics in March of 2008), China's putatively
reformist Communist Party leaders reverted to traditional authoritarian rule.
The crackdown on unrest in Xinjiang (and previously in Tibet), followed a
familiar pattern of shutting out print and television journalists and
disrupting Internet and mobile phone services.
While human-rights groups voiced outrage over the crackdown and media blackout
in Urumqi, reactions were mild among Western governments keen not to anger
Beijing during these sensitive economic times.
Unmoved by criticism, the central government points to more relaxed rules for
foreign reporters that were implemented for the Olympics and continued
afterward as evidence of a new openness. There is also a rapidly growing army
of civic-minded Chinese netizens whose refusal to accept corruption and
malfeasance among their local leaders has brought numerous scandals to light.
Corruption and bad governance remain endemic in China while human rights and
media freedoms, always valued in Communist Party rhetoric, continue to suffer
under official paranoia. At the same time, however, Chinese leaders can state
that human rights, once not even a concept, are now a part of the national
conversation.
Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based teacher and writer. He can be reached at
kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
