China, the Olympics and the World
David Zweig
Director, Center on China’s Transnational Relations
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
27 May 2008
Conflicting Expectations between
China and the West
• China hoped to “reap reams of soft power” from the
Olympics
• But for a variety of reasons--product safety, Tibet, media
controls, political repression, etc.,--it has not been able to
portray the picture to the world that it wanted to send.
• The world expected China to change over night, but has
had to deal with the fact that China’s domestic politics
remain highly authoritarian and its foreign policy
alliances are questionable.
• These conflicting expectations have fired up Chinese and
foreigner alike, leading to a quite rocky road to the
Olympics.
• All of this occurs in the context of a “rising China”—
taking greater role in international trade, exports, foreign
affairs—establishing stronger relations with Africa, Asia,
and South America;
• As the U.S. Hegemon, China’s rival, is in decline.
China’s Expectations from the Olympics:
Soft Power and Sports Power
• China’s plan was to use the Olympics
to demonstrate its rise and the great
accomplishments of the past 30 years.
• Enhance its ‘soft power”—Hu Jintao
has personally focused on enhancing
soft power.
• It has spent 290 billion RMB (US$33
billion) on infrastructure.
Winning a “War without Weapons”
• In 2002, China established the “Plan to Win
Glory” program to win the 2008 Olympics
when its sports teams set aside millions of
RMB to improve the quality of its competitors.
• Main goal: beat the US for medals.
• The number of Chinese athletes very high,
570/1700 athletes at Olympics will be
Chinese.
• Some Chinese national teams were sent to
army barracks for military training.
• majority of medals China is likely to win are
by women.
Remarkable Reforms—
But beware of the dirty laundry
• China wants to show the world how its reform
program had transformed China from a backward
country—the sick man of Asia—into a world power
that could pull off a world-class event.
• By successfully pulling off the Olympics, China says
to the world, “look at us; we have become a great
power.”
• But when you invite people into your home to show
it off, they will see many problems hidden in the
closet.
• People see not only the greatness of the past 30
years, but all the problems that have emerged.
• Especially problematic because under agreement
with IOC, China must let international journalists
have free reign of the country, so they can report the
problems that China faced.
Enhance national reunification and
National unity
• Using Olympics to enhance national reunification
and national unity
• One world, one dream”– a great China
• Hong Kong hosting events, create national pride;
• What Xu Xin called “the connection of the high
politics of nation building with the low politics of
sports.”
• Bring Taiwan into the fold, but negotiations totally
failed;
• This may be one reason there was so much
astonishment at the Tibet riots—the exact opposite
of this goal was the result—triggered national
disunity and issue of separatism.
The World’s Hyped-Expectations:
Promises, Promises
• China doesn’t change political very
quickly and remains plagued by many
problems that affect the fastest
developing country in world history;
• China suffers from what I call the
“externalities of development,” land
confiscation, pollution, faulty product
quality, explosion of automobiles--all
under a system that is too poorly
regulated—not overly regulated.
The Search for a “Responsible
Power”
• Many in the West want to see a more “responsible power” emerge
from the Olympics, one that, in their eyes, is deserving of “great
power” status.
• The world opened to China’s goods—China joined the WTO and
plays by the rules--but the quality of too many of those goods is
poor, so the previously domestic poisonings in China become
“transnational events.”
• 60% of Americans have pets—4,000 died from bad pet food;
• Long list of bad products erupted as we moved to Olympics.
• China’s resource hunger creates alliances with immoral,
“pariah nations—Burma, Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela,
Sudan—a long list of states that ignore international norms,
• so the world—especially U.S.—scrutinize China’s foreign
policy;
• the West questions China’s morality in foreign policy and
wonders about what kind of world it will promote as it rises.
The West Waits Impatiently for
China’s Political Transitions
• The West wants to see China transition towards democracy
• South Korea’s Olympic experience set a dangerous
precedence for China, foolishly raised Western expectations;
• China promised to enhance media freedom for both
international and local journalists as well—has done so for
foreign journalists, but tries to constrain negative reporting
by local journalists in buildup to the Olympics.
• With so many issues upon which Chinese government and
international community disagree, foreign governments and
foreign NGOs are disappointed by China’s refusal to
enhance freedom.
• Tibet’s repression reinforced concern festering in minds of
many people, that China is getting away with hosting the
Olympics without carrying out political reform.
The Politicization of the
Olympics
Once this enormous gap emerged
between Western and Chinese
expectations,
the Olympics had to be politicized.
The international component
• Politicization: “the effort by the West to hold China accountable
for its domestic and international behaviour, and where it finds
China falling short of Western expectations, the West becomes
willing to use the Olympics to pressure China to make political
concessions.”
• The West views China through the lens of Tiananmen Square,
an authoritarian state that has done amazing job of developing
its economy, but at enormous costs to the environment, human
rights, product safety, and the development of a democratic
society.
• Since China made commitments to the IOC about political and
media reform, West feels justified in holding China’s feet to the
fire.
• West sees the Olympics as unique moment to pressure China
to meet the its Olympic commitments, and get it to alter its
international and domestic behaviour.
Domestic component to politicization
• CCP sees Olympics as great opportunity to build
domestic legitimacy and show the people of China
that their motherland has become a great power.
• 30 years of reform brought great success, and
people of China, after a century of humiliation,
should feel proud of what they and the CCP have
accomplished.
• How important is this event to China?
• Its leadership gave its next leader, Xi Jinping,
responsibility for insuring the success of the
Olympics.
• Equivalent to U.S. giving U.S. Vice President
responsibility for the Atlanta Olympics and telling
him that if it doesn’t go well, he will not be able to
run for president.
Domestic component to the
politicization, 2
• China has emphasized the fact that so many
leaders of the world will attend the event.
• Their attendance is meant to give China
international prestige, or “face” (mianzi) and
show the Chinese people that the Middle
Kingdom is alive, well and recognized.
• And as the hostility of the West grows, China
is able to use foreign forces to rally the
people around the CCP and the country by
appealing to its nationalism.
• And the effort has been largely successful,
as Chinese people worldwide are full of pride
for the rise of their country.
Americans say:
“Politicize the Olympics!”
• Many in the West resent that CCP using this international
event to build legitimacy, to strengthen its rule, especially
when they see China’s domestic and foreign behaviour
running against global norms.
• Strong support in the U.S. for politicizing the Olympics
and using it to promote human rights within China.
• NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, summer 2007,
Americans ranked "improving human rights" as the most
important thing the Chinese government could do in the
run-up to the Olympics, ahead of implementing
environmental policies or practicing fair trade.
• May 2007, UPI/Zogby poll, 58 percent of Americans
supported using Games to protest China's human rights
policies.
Transnational Component
• Olympics as an international event, where people, prestige,
investment and goods cross international boundaries.
• Important variation in how the event is cast on the two sides of the
border and in Chinese and Western communities.
• Explosion of nationalism by overseas Chinese students.
• Triggered by West’s somewhat biased reporting of the riots in Tibet;
• suggested that Western media wants to prevent China from
enhancing its “soft power” during the Olympics.
• Jack Cafferty fit right in, denigrating China’s leaders, products, and
labour policy—
• “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the
last 50 years.”
• Even as China seeks Western media help in promoting its soft
power, Cafferty undermined those efforts by referring to their
products as “junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet
food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay
workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that were buying from
Wal-Mart.”
Students Views on the West and the World
• Striking aspect of wave of marches that swept
Chinese communities worldwide was their progovernment nature.
• How does a strong perspective mesh with view that
studying in democratic countries leads students to
adopt more internationalist perspectives and accept
the idea that China should engage with the world?
• Western governments encourage Chinese students
to study abroad so that, when they return to China,
they will form a force for more open, engaged China;
and one that will look favourably on their host
country.
• Anti-Western anger of protestors calls this into
question.
Students Views on the West and the World
• In 2006, a team of researchers from Hong Kong and
the mainland carried out a nationwide survey of
9,000 Chinese citizens.
• Some questions tapped views on international
affairs.
• In 2006-07, similar questions were asked of 2,000
former overseas students who had returned to China
from Japan and Canada.
• A comparison of the views of these two groups-foreign-educated students who returned to China
and Chinese who never went overseas--offer some
surprising insights into these recent events.
“Constructive Internationalism”
• Compared to general population in China, returnees far more
supportive of Beijing’s “constructive internationalism.”
• 81% of returnees support either increasing financial aid for
Third World or sending medical teams to Africa,
• only 64% and 70% of locals, respectively, supports these two
expressions of internationalism.
• Returnees had extremely positive views of the country which
hosted them during their studies.
• Among returnees from Japan, a country most Chinese hate,
their most favourite country from a list of eight countries—
including the U.S., Canada, France and Japan—was Japan.
• Similarly, returnees from Canada chose Canada as their
favourite country, placing Japan near the bottom of the list.
“Assertive nationalism”
• Returnees and locals much closer on other
views of foreign policy.
• Four questions evaluated the strength of
what we call “assertive nationalism.”
(1) whether people should support their country, “even
if it is wrong;”
(2) whether foreigners should be prevented from
buying state-owned enterprises;
(3) whether they felt that some foreign country wanted
to contain China’s rise;
(4) whether China should limit imports to protect
domestic enterprises.
“Assertive nationalism” 2
• Over 40% of returnees agree that Chinese
should support their government’s foreign
policy, “right or wrong,” while 25% have no
opinion on this issue.
• Among locals, 66% agree with this statement.
• And when we combine responses to these
four questions into this single category we
call “assertive nationalism,” few differences
(measured by mean score) emerge between
the two groups.
“Assertive nationalism” 2
• With greater access to information, they see
hypocrisy when Western countries, which decimated
their indigenous communities, lecture China about
how it “misrules” Tibet.
• Proud of Beijing’s Olympic moment in the sun, they
bristle, as do all Chinese, when Western media
emphasizes the negative aspects of China’s reforms,
rather the accomplishments of the past 30 years.
• Having seen how developed the West is, they are
proud that their own country is rising and taking its
place among the powerful states of the world.
• Living abroad, they have the freedom to protest;
• As nationalists, that is exactly what they did.
Worries down the road:
Can you use Water Cannon?
• How will it deal with foreign protestors, who
may resort to violence, with the eyes of the
world there in Beijing? They better learn how
to use water cannons effectively.
• How will China behave when its citizens
demonstrate excessive nationalism and
celebrate victories in ways that demonstrate
great hostility towards the West, particularly
the U.S. and Japan?
• How will the Western media now respond to
possible Chinese misbehaviour, having been
chastised so badly over the Tibet crisis?
Conclusion: The Olympics, the World and
China’s Peaceful Rise
• China mistrusts the West, particularly the US since it tried to
stop China from getting the Olympics.
• China sees itself as the rising power, challenging the global
hegemon, and it expects the world and the U.S. to try to utilize
the Olympics to undermine its rise and its “soft power.”
• Many people in the world want to see China succeed, or worry
that a failed Olympiad will leave China angry at the world,
increasing the likelihood that its rise will be destabilizing,
rather than stabilizing, force.
• This East-West conflict is deeply troubling.
• China will continue to rise and the Olympics was to be China’s
debutante ball, its coming-out party, and imbue it with reams of
soft power.
• But the “one dream” Olympic theme has so far been closer to a
nightmare;
Conclusion: The Olympics, the World and
China’s Peaceful Rise, 2
• Westerns media has emasculated the soft power
aspirations by shining its spotlight on the dark side of
China’s policies.
• The type of responses we saw from China’s youth, both
at home and abroad, suggest that unless East and West
enhance their understanding, Chinese citizens, including
those who studied abroad and have since returned, will
not constrain Beijing’s foreign policy, should it not rise
peacefully;
• They, too, will see the West increasingly as the
opposition that wants to hold China back from resuming
its once glorious global stature.
• So, in the end, the Olympics has enormous political
significance, for China, for the West and for the World.
• Let us hope that it will be successful.