open Democracy News Analysis - China's soft-power failure, Li Datong - Comments

arnaldog on "China's soft-power failure"

arnaldog — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:24:27 +0100

I agree with Li Datong that the closing Olimpics will provide everyone some guidance on what are the full intentions of Chinese government and CCP leadership. It is to be proved if the CPG extracts the wise lessons from the humanitarian crisis of Sichuan and use it as leverage to unite the Chinese people and make more transparent and accountable its leadership. China needs in a rawlsian sense a social contract that defines, clearly, the relation between rulers and the people. Ideology has fade away, but Western liberalism seems hardly the path for China have the necessary combine between tradition and modernity, order and openess, respect and plurality. A new mix is necessary based in Chinese traditions and the responsabilities China is asked to perform in world stage.

Johannes Adamsen on "China's soft-power failure"

Johannes Adamsen — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:51:25 +0100

I really appreciate openDemocracy's Li Datong, but this time I miss something in the argument.

I simply find it difficult to comprehend just why China was given the possibilitiy to host the games only a little more than one year after the crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999, cf Maria Hsia Chang, Falun Gong. The End of Days, Yale University Press 2004. This could hardly be interpreted as a straight line of bettering on human rights records since Tiananmen 1989. I'll be delighted to have Li Datong commenting on that.

Is it due to a underreporting of what went on in China in those months in 1999? Or should we just suppose that the International Olympic Comitee is out of tune with the world - when it does not concern money at least?

China's soft-power failure, Li Datong

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:06:08 +0100

The Chinese government planned the year of the Olympic games in Beijing on 8-24 August 2008 as a demonstration of the country's pride and confidence on the global stage. So far, it has not turned out that way. The Tibet protests in mid-March, and the disruption of the Olympic-torch relay that followed, have created confusion in government circles. Now, the earthquake in Sichuan on 12 May has presented the authorities with another severe challenge of management and public relations. A triumphal year is becoming ever more tense.

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