Whatever it takes, China aims for dazzling Games |
By Calum MacLeod and Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY BEIJING ¡ª They are evicting tenants to make room for visitors, shutting down factories to reduce pollution, plotting to control the weather, staging rallies to teach English and ordering Beijing's brusque citizens to mind their manners. Whatever it takes, the organizers of the Beijing Olympics are determined to put on the grandest Games ever a year from now ¡ª and make them a symbol of the communist nation's arrival as a global economic power. Even the time and date of the opening ceremony ¡ª 8:08 p.m., Aug. 8, 2008 ¡ª were chosen to try to ensure success, eight being a lucky number in China. A series of recent scandals involving contaminated food and consumer goods produced in China has only heightened the urgency for Beijing to put on a good face for the more than 10,000 athletes and 550,000 visitors expected here next summer. In its zeal to do so, China will dole out a record $40 billion on stadiums and airport and subway improvements, more than twice what Greece spent on the Athens Olympics in 2004. The effort by China's authoritarian government has become a model of efficiency ¡ª sports venues and athletes' housing will be completed well ahead of schedule, in sharp contrast to Athens ¡ª but also controversy. Humanitarian groups claim the Chinese government has evicted more than 1 million people to clear the way for venues and other Olympic facilities. The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) puts the number at 1.5 million; it said in a recent report many of Beijing's displaced tenants have been given little or no notice and forced evictions often have been violent. Evicted residents frequently have received little compensation and have been at risk of becoming homeless, the report said. If COHRE's figure is accurate, China's effort to clear out residents for the Games would be unprecedented ¡ª double the number the group says were relocated by South Korea for the Seoul Olympics in 1988. The Chinese government, however, says the number of households displaced is only about 6,000. And Giselle Davis of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says COHRE's estimate on displaced residents "is not consistent with our understanding." For the most part, the IOC has taken a hands-off approach to questions about the Beijing government's human rights record. "We believe that the Olympic Games will have definitely a positive, lasting effect on the Chinese society," IOC President Jacques Rogge said at an executive board meeting in April. For all the criticism, it's become clear the Chinese government's approach has been effective in remaking parts of Beijing, a city of about 15 million. Visitors will see newly landscaped parks and sophisticated designs in showcase Olympic venues such as the National Stadium, called the "bird's nest" for the lattice steel shell that wraps around it. Rogge has called Beijing's venues "the best I've ever seen." "The transformation is amazing," says Daniel Bell, a philosophy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "Unlike Athens, there will be no last-minute panic. There are problems with having an authoritarian state (as Olympic host), but they will get things done on time." "They'll do a fantastic job," Olympic historian David Wallechinsky agrees. "The venues will be in order. ¡ Everybody will be on their best behavior. There will be no spitting on walls. I expect the opening ceremony to be the most spectacular ever." Pollution is a chronic problem in Beijing, and lately it's been exacerbated by a construction boom partly inspired by the Olympics. Beijing's sky is often a yellowish mix of factory emissions, car exhaust and Gobi Desert sand. For the Olympics, Beijing will spend more than $3 billion on pollution control this year, Shi Hanmin, director of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, told state-run Xinhua News Agency. Authorities will order 1 million cars off Beijing's gridlocked streets for two weeks this month to test a plan to cut traffic and auto emissions during the Games. Organizers also plan to run 50 electric buses to transport Olympic officials and athletes, Xinhua reported. Last year Beijing removed 15,000 old taxis and 3,000 buses from the city to try to ease pollution and traffic. Chinese officials have closed a large chemical factory. And one of Beijing's leading manufacturers, the Capital Iron & Steel Works, will reduce production during the Games before moving to an island in the Bohai Bay in 2010. "We would have moved anyway, but the Olympics has speeded the process," Capital spokesman Yu Xiangmin says. At a time when the International Energy Agency says China is surpassing the USA as the world's top producer of greenhouse gases, the Chinese also are touting their efforts to create an environmentally friendly, "green" Olympics. Going green isn't new to the Olympic movement. In the 2000 Games, Sydney's Olympic Village operated on solar power. Beijing's organizing committee has hired some Australian engineers and architects involved in the Sydney Games to design the Olympic Village and National Aquatics Center. Beijing's Olympic venues will use silicon solar panels that use much less energy than those used in Sydney in 2000, says inventor Ma Xin, who works with the Beijing organizing committee. Beijing officials also say they have planted nearly 200 million trees since 2002, the year after Beijing became the 2008 Games host. The Olympics has inspired Chinese officials to press for ways to ease Beijing's chronic water shortages. Organizers are pushing a costly scheme to divert water to Beijing for the Olympics from reservoirs 190 miles away in Hebei province. A section from Shijiazhuang to Beijing will cost about $2.2 billion and is part of a $61 billion project to divert water from southern China to the north that won't be complete until 2010, says Chen Xichuan, an official at the central government commission leading the project. Landscape architect and environmentalist Yu Kongjian dismisses the plan as "an engineer's solution" to China's water problems. He says the nation needs more efficient rainwater management, expanded wetlands and smarter farming. Then again, Chinese Olympic officials are hoping to control the rain to keep outdoor events dry. Before Olympic events for which rain is forecast, they will blast clouds with rockets carrying chemicals designed to make it rain quickly, so any storm is over before the event begins. The USA pioneered "cloud-seeding" in the 1940s and '50s, and today some ski resorts use the procedure to try to boost snowfall. Besides zapping clouds, the Chinese will roll out technology to try impress visitors. Athletes won't carry keys in the Olympic Village: Their room doors will open when they show their faces. Cameras on the doors will be linked to digital recognition scanners. "We don't want too many policemen around or too many identity card checks," Ma says. "It would spoil the atmosphere." Compared with recent Olympics, security will be less of a concern in China because of its authoritarian state. For the 2004 Athens Games, security costs climbed to $1.4 billion because of the country's history of domestic terrorism and its proximity to known terrorist havens. State media in China have reported that $300 million will be spent on security here. China's iron hand may be tested China's communist regime isn't known for tolerating dissent, and it doesn't show signs of making much of an exception for the Olympic Games, which often are used as a forum for protests. An early test came when the Olympic torch relay route was announced this year. Tibetan activists seeking more autonomy for the Himalayan region oppose Beijing's plan to take the torch atop Mount Everest. In April, China expelled four Americans for protesting at an Everest base camp. Meanwhile, the government of Taiwan ¡ª which rejects China's contention that Taiwan is part of China ¡ª has protested its inclusion as part of the domestic torch route. Taiwan wants to be part of the international route, on which the torch will pass through other nations before arriving in China. Chinese officials discount the possibility of disruption. "I don't think dissent is a big issue," says Wang Wei, secretary general of Beijing's organizing committee. "We have laws in China and if you want to protest, you must apply." Such applications are rarely filed or approved. London-based Amnesty International says China has failed to improve human rights, a promise the country made when it was awarded the Olympics. The group's report in April cited the persecution of civil rights activists and the censoring of domestic media. "There is no indication the Chinese will change any of their policies," says Wallechinsky, the Olympic historian. "They will follow the Moscow (Olympics) model from 1980. They'll just arrest everybody (who protests) and ship them a thousand miles away." The Amnesty International report says China's government misuses its "re-education through labor" system to detain activists. The system, in place since 1957, can keep a crime suspect in jail for up to four years without a trial. "Beijing is using the Olympics to boost China's international image and domestic legitimacy," says Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California-Berkeley. "But giving China's people fundamental political rights is not on their agenda." Seeking well-mannered hosts Beijing's toughest task in preparing for next year could be teaching its citizens to be more polite, says Zhang Huiguang, a government official who has the role of Miss Manners of the Beijing Olympics. "Building the hardware, like stadiums, is no problem for China," Zhang says. "But building the software, like improving the people's quality, is harder." On a recent day, 10,000 Chinese students shout themselves hoarse at the Beijing Science and Technology Institute. They punch the air, wave pamphlets and shout English phrases ¡ª a method taught by Li Yang, founder of the English language learning method Crazy English and a consultant to the Games. "If you're not crazy, you can't really learn English," Li says. "Crazy English suits Chinese. They are too shy by themselves and afraid of making mistakes. But they are less shy when all speaking together." He wants to reach 1.5 million Olympic volunteers and dreams that all 1.3 billion Chinese eventually will be able to recite the '08 Games' motto: "One World, One Dream" in English. Student Song Qingju, 21, chants slogans with abandon but reverts to Chinese in a one-on-one conversation. "I'm sorry," she tells a USA TODAY reporter. "You are the first foreigner I've ever spoken to." Beijing also wants taxi drivers to learn some English. "If I fail the English test, I could lose my job," says driver Ma Junjin, 45. Not so successfully, he tries two English phrases he's learned: "Welcome to China" and "I love you." Wang Tao is leading a campaign to get Beijing residents to stop spitting in public. He's fighting centuries of tradition. "People should swallow their spit," he says. "But that is hard for most Chinese to accept. So I focus on 'civilized spitting,' telling people to spit into tissue and dispose responsibly." Olympic organizers hope to break the Chinese of other habits, at least for the two weeks the Games are here. They have designated the 11th of each month as "queuing day," during which sharp-elbowed Beijing residents will be urged to show restraint and line up while waiting for services, Xinhua reported. Officials also hope to curb smoking at Olympic venues. About 350 million people ¡ª roughly 25% of the population ¡ª smoke. "I hope U.S. visitors will see China as a normal country, friendly with good manners, good hosts," Wang says. "China always seems so far away and mysterious. When I meet people who are on their first trip to China, they always say, 'It's so different from what I had read about or seen on TV.' That's what I am hoping for." Contributing: MacLeod reported from Beijing; Wiseman from Hong Kong
| 
发表于 2012-3-8 13:17:49