The lead story today on China’s English language TV news service was “Olympics change world’s view of China.”
It is the type of headline that one might suspect from Chinese state-run media. The statement conjures sentiments of the nation’s collective perseverance. That despite the heavy scrutiny prior to the Games, and doubts about its role as a constructive global player, China has succeeded. It has put on a terrific show for the world.
In some senses the headline is very true. Chinese culture has been on a whirlwind display over the past two weeks. Watching from home we can have a new appreciation for the might of the nation, for its collective willpower, for its national pride.
In another light, the ruling party has also answered some questions about the breadth of their reach in a modernizing state. We no longer wonder about the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to cease production and clear the skies over Beijing, or reduce traffic flow to reasonable levels, seemingly at the flip of a switch.
After threatening 70-year-old women with forced reeducation programs when their legal application to protest was rejected, we also don’t wonder about the extent to which the government feels comfortable with the world’s perception of its tight grip on freedom of expression. After all, if grandmothers seeking legal forms of redress under a global spotlight don’t have a chance to express dissent, who does?
For the world that watched on television, Beijing as the image of China was reinforced. The hundreds of millions of peasants and migrant workers were conspicuously absent from the picture. Indeed, the Olympics have altered, or perhaps clarified, some perceptions of this country.
The 2008 Games are in many ways a celebration of China’s dramatic progress over the past 30 years. They are a milepost for China and for the world. That progress has often come at grave costs and it will continue to play out over the coming decades.
Because so much of that change and the call to action of over the past seven years have been pinned to the Olympics, it is only natural to wonder what is next for China. What will be the next national rally cry? This gives China watchers, and journalists like myself, something to do.
But if anything, these Olympics remind us that China is a global force that will alter the course of our world, perhaps particularly for Americans. What is next for China is also what is next for the U.S. These Olympics seem to pose the question: is the world ready?
China used to be considered the other side of the world. Today, on a direct flight from Seattle, you or I could be eating Peking duck in about 11 hours, no more than a long workday. Essentially, China is our neighbor. Welcome to the Pacific Century.
To underscore this fact, our state borders Canada, but China is Washington State’s leading trade partner and our number one export target. Over the next several decades China will have an unprecedented impact on our state, and therefore has tremendous implications for Snohomish County.
As pork prices rise and fall for Liu Zhan, a poor Beijing butcher, or Zhang Guodong reports another story as a young Chinese journalist, tiny ripples are created that can be felt across the Pacific when magnified by the global system we live in. When for better or worse, our jobs at home are dependent on the same system that controls the job of a worker on a manufacturing line in China, well, then we are still speaking in terms of locality. As everybody knows, it is important to know your neighbors.
The 2008 Olympics have been just one manifestation of these global currents that affect our lives at the most local level.
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