Annals of the Chinese "Success" Story

Filed under: Asia

The Korea Times reports that things are not quite so rosy in China as some would have you believe:

The Chinese are big believers in omens, so it was not a good sign that on the eve of its big pre-Olympic celebration that, in a Russian crash test, the Chinese-made Chery, its big hope for auto exports, folded up like a cheap suitcase. "Crumpled like newspaper" were the words of one observer. It was so bad the crash dummy had to be extricated in pieces. Not, as they say, an auspicious omen.

The big shindig Wednesday night in Beijing was to mark the one-year countdown to the start of the 2008 Summer Olympics, which China sees as its coming-out party as a full and accepted member of the family of major nations. Many Olympic officials and dignitaries were present, as were a band of foreign demonstrators and a band of foreign reporters there to cover both. The Chinese foreign ministry had decreed that foreign reporters were to be allowed to do their work unmolested, but as has a way of happening, the memo didn't get down to the guys with the riot batons. The prowess displayed by the Beijing police suggests that they should go for Olympic gold in rounding up reporters and protesters. (Recent revelations about the handling of demonstrators at the 2006 Republican convention also suggest that the New York City police should send a team. They're looking at certain silver.) These particular demonstrators were demanding the release of political prisoners, but the authorities are bracing for all kinds of activists -- Tibet and Xinjiang separatist movements, pressure to ease up on the Falun Gong, those trying to get Sudan to end the slaughter in Darfur.

However, the appearance of Beijing's periodic blanket of suffocating fog outweighed the human-rights considerations in the minds of Olympic officials. The Chinese stressed that pollution-abating efforts had advanced to the point where the air was breathable two days out of three instead of less than one day out of five as heretofore. Still, some officials speculated that, faced with air they could see, their athletes might want either to stay home or arrive early in Beijing to acclimate to the local pollutants.

Paper cars, air you can see and the Gestapo. Seems like China hasn't yet reached the lofty status some would like to claim.