home > by publication type > daily analysis > Gaming the China Model
Email
| Author: |
|---|
China is using the 2008 Olympics to showcase its recent rise on the world stage. (AP/Greg Baker)
As national challenges go, hosting an Olympiad surely ranks far below establishing ethnic harmony, a healthy trade balance, peace with neighboring states, or respect for the rule of law. In the glare of the global media, however, the superficial often prevails. China is likely to be judged by much of the planet in the coming weeks on how it stages the Beijing Games, which provide a priceless opportunity to show off achievements at a time when its global competitor, the United States, is struggling with a misfiring economic engine (WSJ) and remains enmeshed in an unpopular war. For all the high-minded invocations of the Olympic spirit, no one should doubt that the Beijing games will be as powerful a marketing campaign for China's authoritarian capitalist model (Foreign Affairs) as any devised by Madison Avenue.
This isn't new. From the inception of the modern Olympics, governments have strained every national muscle to turn the supposedly apolitical games into showcases for national, ideological, or even racial superiority. As this photographic timeline indicates, politics and the Olympics have gone hand-in-hand from the start. Berlin 1936. Moscow 1980. Los Angeles 1984. The list of Olympics colored by geopolitics is lengthy.
Yet the context in which the world views the games also matters. Take the Olympic Games away, and the year China has endured is not necessarily one an aspiring world leader would want to repeat—a point CFR senior fellows Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal made in this recent Foreign Affairs article. A catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan Province caused grievous human suffering, but also deep political damage to the Communist Party's efforts to portray its monopoly on political power as consensual, as parents protested (NYT) the shoddy construction that led to the deaths of so many school children. Beijing’s continued dealings with the regimes running Sudan, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe hardly polished the nation's credentials as a responsible global stakeholder. Internally, nationalist unrest, first in Tibet and surrounding provinces, and then by violent groups seeking independence for the vast Muslim region of Xinjiang, highlighted some of the challenges facing China's rulers.
China has gone to enormous lengths to attempt to prevent journalists from placing the games in this context. Beijing has blocked internet sites (NYSun). Sweeps of dissidents, tightened visa restrictions, and desperate efforts to temporarily curb Beijing's notorious pollution are all meant to display Chinese competence.
The perceived missteps of U.S. policy since 9/11 only abet China's rising stature. Whether or not Iraq or Afghanistan ultimately emerge better off for their contact with U.S. forces, global opinion continues to be unfavorable toward the United States on these two campaigns, as the latest Pew global survey (PDF) indicates. While the Pew survey also found considerable concern about China's influence, there remains an environment in which the China model is "growing disturbingly popular in some circles," says James K. Glassman, U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
When all the medals in Beijing are tallied, China may very well come out on top, displacing the traditional German, Russian, and U.S. powerhouses. That would be a victory of sorts. But the real competition is for hearts and minds in those many nations where poverty and despair persist. Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation sees the future (NYT) as a one in which China, Europe, and America vie for influence among the middleweight powers of the world—countries like Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Ukraine. Will such nations heed the counsel of Western liberal democracies even as those countries see their own economic fortunes in relative decline? Or will the gleaming venues, beaming medal winners, and economic rise of China tempt them to think otherwise?
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
Complete list of CFR Books.
This report lays out a thoughtful agenda for U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo, arguing that what happens there should matter to the United States--for humanitarian reasons as well as economic and strategic ones.
In this report, CFR Senior Fellow Michael A. Levi analyzes the potential use of deterrence in preventing terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear weapons and recommends a new approach to U.S. declaratory policy, as well as ways to improve U.S. capabilities to determine the sources of terrorist attacks.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR.
Foreign Affairs has compiled a collection of articles that offer policy prescriptions to some of the world's most pressing problems.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1-212-434-9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
To request permission to reuse Council materials, please email publications@cfr.org or fax +1.212.434.9859.
Please include the complete information of the requested work—author, title, sections/pages to be copied or reprinted, and number of copies to be made—along with a brief description of where and how you would like to reuse the work.
You may also request permission for Council material through Copyright Clearance Center. For more information, please click on the link below.
Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
Global Economy 