open Democracy News Analysis - Olympics - Comments

I'm an american on "China’s Olympics: after the storm"

I'm an american — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:57:18 +0000

the tibets are tyrants, that leader is a a believer of Falun Gong- a really wrong religion where people believe once they burn themselves, they will be in heaven. that leader is insane!! :::(((

Hosting Dlya Seo on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Hosting Dlya Seo — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:50:29 +0000

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Thumberlina on "China on Olympic eve: a globalisation of sentiment "

Thumberlina — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:44:16 +0000

I never heard of "Quyen Xiu". There is one Ouyang Xiu though.

ducafeli on "China and the Olympics: a view from Egypt "

ducafeli — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:47:45 +0000

The most eye-catching venue for the Beijing Olympic Games, the "Bird's Nest" stadium, made its debut on April 18, as China's construction and preparations on Olympic venues are drawing to an end.

A race walking challenge and a marathon competition were the first events at the National Stadium, the official name of the "Bird's Nest." The venue, where the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies will be held as well as track and field competitions and some football games, will host another test event in May.

The 3.5-billion-yuan (500-million-U.S. dollar) architectural jewel of Beijing, nicknamed "Bird's Nest" from its design of interlocking cement and steel frames, is the last competition venue to be finished.

The final touches to the "Bird's Nest" were postponed to the end of April because of "a few adjustments for the opening and closing ceremonies," said the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

China has completed work on 30 of the 31 new and refurbished competition venues and all the 45 training venues in Beijing by April 18.

ICONIC "BIRD'S NEST" AND "WATER CUBE"

Of the Olympic venues, "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube" Aquatics Center are two iconic and landmark showpieces.

"Bird's Nest," the main stadium for the Games, is at the Olympic Green, east of the city's north-south axis and to the north, covering an area of 258,000 square meters (63.8 acres).

Many Chinese people chose to stop at a viaduct opposite the stadium to take souvenir pictures, a practice frowned upon by traffic police as it can cause traffic congestion.

The 91,000-seat "Bird's Nest," whose structure is made of 45,000 tonnes of steel, has the world's most advanced screening and omni-directional systems and mobile seating.

It employs sophisticated architectural designs and arts produced by Switzerland-based Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. It is said that the distance from any location inside the venue to the center of the sports field is within 140 meters and all the spectators are able to leave the venue within roughly eight minutes.

Jared Tallent from Australia, the arena's first gold medallist who won the men's 20km of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge on April 18, said the "Bird's Nest" is "fantastic" and the track is "good enough."

The 17,000-seat "Water Cube" will host swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo games during the Olympics and 42 gold medals will be awarded there.

It was completed on January 28 and hosted its first event, a swimming competition, three days later.

The squat, box-like structure with three pools below ground level is made up of a steel skeleton sheathed in a Teflon-like plastic membrane that resembles bubbling water and gives the venue its name.

The eco-friendly structure's translucent shell allows in natural sunlight, providing heat and light and cutting energy use by up to 30 percent, according to information provided by BOCOG.

"This is an excellent and wonderful facility... and the best aquatic venue by far," said Richard Kevan Gosper, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Press Commission chairman.

Together, the two structures are at the heart of the 2008 Games layout and reflect the Chinese philosophy of harmonious balance. The steel stadium is circular and red hued. The water-covered swimming center is square and blue. Fire and water, masculine and feminine. An aerial photograph of the site reveals the two key Olympic venues forming a giant yin and yang symbol (ancient Chinese symbol of femininity and masculinity).

The north-south city axis, which runs through the Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Drum and Bell Towers, perfectly dissects the two modern landmarks, which are born from a mix of deep-rooted Chinese culture and free-flowing modern ideas.

"Bird's Nest" and "Water Cube" will be operated by their investors in the following 30 years after the Olympic Games.

OTHER VENUES AND THEIR FEATURES

Of the 31 Beijing Olympic competition venues, 12 are new, 11 are older buildings being refurbished and eight are temporary structures. There are six other competition venues in the co-hosting cities of Qingdao, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

The construction of the 31 competition venues in Beijing cost less than 13 billion yuan, according to Beijing Vice Mayor Chen Gang.

BOCOG said the check and acceptance of Olympic venues would be finished in June. The venues held 35 test events and received more than 20,000 journalists and half a million spectators by mid March, winning accolades from officials, athletes and audiences.

The construction of the venues started in December 2003 with a ground-breaking ceremony at the "Bird's Nest." The three concepts of Green Olympics, People's Olympics and Hi-tech Olympics were featured in the buildings.

A 19,000-square-meter curtain wall made of low-emissivity glass covers the national Indoor Stadium, providing insulation and improving energy efficiency by reducing the transfer of heat and also acting as a filter for ultra-violet rays.

The Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park is the world's only first-class rowing-canoeing venue that contains both flat-water and slalom courses. Combined with the forest in surrounding areas, the park is hailed as a natural "oxygen bar."

The University of Science and Technology of Beijing (USTB) Gymnasium boasts the world's largest suspended dome ceiling of 93 meters in diameter.

The biggest highlight of the USTB Gymnasium lies in the installation of 148 fiber optic light pipes that are 530 mm in diameter. On days with strong sunlight, the pipes will be able to meet the lighting needs for sports training in the gym. At night, the pipes will transmit light through the gymnasium's roof, creating an attractive night view.

The Beijing Shooting Range Hall was designed to reflect the shape of a hunting bow, as hunting in forests is the origin of the sport. The shape will reduce audience disturbance of players while maximising the number of spectators.

SECURITY, TRAFFIC AND OTHER PREPARATIONS

China has formed a top-level leading group for the preparations of the Beijing Olympic Games headed by Xi Jinping, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the country's top decision-making body.

The country also appointed a state-level agency that groups the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to ensure security for the Games.

It has also drafted plans for emergencies during the event, enhanced exchanges and coordination with foreign security organizations, and stepped up training for security staff as well other people involved in the Games.

To ease traffic woes in a city with 17 million people and more than 3 million registered motor vehicles, Beijing will copy Sydney and Athens' practice to separate Olympic traffic from others, according to BOCOG.

Beijing tested a traffic ban from August 17 to 20 last year, removing 1.3 million or one-third of the city's automobiles every day from its gridlocked streets in accordance with the even and odd numbers on licence plates. The test reduced traffic on main roads and exhaust emissions by 30 and 40 percent respectively.

In preparation for the passenger surge during the Olympics, Beijing opened the world's largest airport terminal in February. The dragon-shaped Terminal 3 at Beijing's Capital International Airport was built at a cost of 27 billion yuan, and will give the airport a handling capacity of 76 million passengers a year, more than double the previous 36 million.

Many of Beijing's parks and historic sites were undergoing renovation before the Games, while eight two-year-old pandas will leave their hometown in southwest China for Beijing in May to entertain tourists.

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ducafeli on "China on Olympic eve: a globalisation of sentiment "

ducafeli — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:37:00 +0000

China has burst onto the world scene with a stunning display of creativity, organisation and single-minded purpose. Beijing’s dazzling Olympics — the greatest global show since the advent of satellite television during the Tokyo Olympics (1964) — is also a reminder that a nation’s prosperity and success can only be achieved through global integration. As a beneficiary of the world’s bounty, China now has a new responsibility.
As the depiction of the Silk Road at the opening ceremony hinted, one of the most prosperous periods in China’s long history was during the Tang dynasty when China was most open to the world. China emerged from its dark days of revolutionary isolation in the late 1970s, when vice premier Deng Xiaoping led economic reforms, which released the creativity and enterprise of its people. In the past 30 years, a new China has joined the world as a poster child for globalisation. I have witnessed China’s transformation from the drab, monochrome socialism I saw in my first visit in 1978 into a glittering landscape of skyscrapers, wide boulevards, high-speed trains and confident, nationalistic youth. That wealth and confidence was on vivid display last week in Beijing’s steel-framed Birds’ Nest Stadium.
The scale and pomp of the Beijing Olympics games establishes a new benchmark of globalisation since the ancient Greek sports ritual was revived in 1896. The rise of global commerce, earth-girdling transportation and telecommunication had by then created enough of a universalist sentiment for a French nobleman, Baron de Coubertin, to win support for relaunching the games. Those Athens Olympics were attended by 311 athletes from 11 countries, who travelled by steamship and train. Their exploits were reported by telegraph transmitted via under-sea cables.
In the years since, particularly since the advent of satellite television with its ever-growing footprint, multinationals have embraced the games as a powerful sales opportunity. The glamour of the games in full view of the world’s consumers has given sportsmanship a powerful new driver. The opportunity to host a glittering Olympics has produced a new international competition for power and glory. Since Deng’s reforms began transforming China, its leaders have sought global recognition for their modern state that embodies an ancient civilisation.
Nothing was more important than the Olympics, in which China has steadily increased its gold medal tally. China’s success in winning the GDP Olympics with double-digit growth for nearly two decades has given it the means —and the confidence — to hold the $43-billion Games. With 16,000 athletes from all over the world and 80 heads of states in attendance, the Beijing Olympics are as much a celebration of China as of globalisation. Multinational companies eager to tap into China’s huge market and a once-in-four-years global branding opportunity have plunked nearly a billion dollars in sponsorships; television companies buying up the rights to reach an estimated four billion viewers worldwide.
The biggest global show has also thrown a spotlight on the enormous problems created by the frenetic drive for economic growth. The cost of China’s breakneck industrialisation is visible in the smog that has covered Beijing for days prior to the Games. This, despite stringent restrictions that shut down polluting factories in the neighbourhood and removed a third of Beijing’s 3.3 million cars from the city’s roads. Just 1 per cent of China’s roughly 560 million urban residents are breathing air deemed safe by the European Union. China has achieved the distinction of being the world’s factory and built a record foreign reserve of $1.7 trillion, but in the process has also emerged as a leading global polluter. China is a major contributor to ‘The Asian Brown Cloud’ that covers large parts of the North American continent and could be accelerating the melting of glaciers and of ice over the Arctic Ocean. Billions of customers of Chinese exports and TV viewers who cheered China’s Olympic spectacle will also be affected by its rising pollution.
For the sake of its citizens and that of the planet, once the Games end, China’s next bid should be to win a different race — the one to create a Green China. Given the demonstrated creativity of its people and the determination of its leaders, China can harness its economy to clean energy and win even more lasting accolades for winning the battle to create a greener, sustainable planet.
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Lingjie Wang on "China changes itself: an Olympics report"

Lingjie Wang — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:33:45 +0000

"...deliberative dictatorship" and other managerial, authoritarian forms of exercising power have failed?:
"
I don't know the answer to that, but I certainly know that the American and Britain are both nationalize their banks. And the whole world is looking at China to help in this global financial crisis.... Not to mention that London is hoping to get some investment from China on it's 2012 stadium. By the way, what abou the funny idea of getting volunteers from China for the London Game?

Which system is failing? Perhaps, only history can tell...

But I do feel that people are reshaping the system in China. Demacracy is happening from bottom-up, particulary from the 'censsored' internet.

opendemocracy on "China changes itself: an Olympics report"

opendemocracy — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:18:55 +0000

A little less brutally than the commentator above, I do wonder what the implicit steps in this part of the argument:

"If its leadership does realise the blindness of the first option [the ret of the world is the problem] and the necessity of the second [help - technological and managerial - from the advanced industrialised economies], the immediate steps on China's upward path can begin. But this would mean also a continuation of perhaps the deepest change of all in the 2000s, one that the Olympics have both made clear and helped to further - that the Chinese people, complex and segmented and dispersed as they are, have and want a voice. Their demands for a bigger say in how their country is run are growing to the point where they will want far more than simply to trust all to the Communist Party and its inner divisions. The upward path that China's leadership has to take will face it with the need to start thinking about the greatest step of all - becoming a transparent, modern democracy. "[emphasis added]

Is this a hope, or is there a mechanism? Is it so clear that the message of the Olympics will be that ``deliberative dictatorship" and other managerial, authoritarian forms of exercising power have failed?

Tony

Not logged in on "China changes itself: an Olympics report"

Not logged in — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:19:19 +0000

I wonder why it is that the West constantly makes demands of China to conform to Western expectations of democracy?

Why is it that the West simply cannot mind it's own freaking business, for once?

Don't give me that whole "China's too important to ignore" garbage. If it's so damned important, then leave it the hell alone.

Francesco Sinibaldi on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Francesco Sinibaldi — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:06:14 +0000

Collection of flowers.

The right rose
appears in my mind,
and everywhere
shines when the
soft wind remains
in the light of
a flower; the cold
leaf is dead
and here there's
a shadow, the
delicate dark and
a loving profile.

Francesco Sinibaldi

ckke on "The Olympics countdown: Beijing to Shanghai"

ckke — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:24:49 +0000

The little girl who sang for the Olympic opening but was kept away due to her looks should sing and appear in the CLOSING CEREMONY. The Organiser should be proud or CHINA should be proud of this little girl. I can say for all Chinese from all over the world is proud to see the Olympics Opening on 08.08.08. Words can't describe the effort done and what a waste, that the young girl who sang the song is a FAKE. Please make up for the wrong done and get the Little Cute singer to SING HER song in the Closing ceremong.

Anthony Barnett on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Anthony Barnett — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:58:27 +0000

Great article!

Ashi on "The Olympics countdown: Beijing to Shanghai"

Ashi — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:52:44 +0000

Nice post. Btw were aware that the ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks for more than a millennium until a Christianized Rome put a stop on the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die. Anyways which country do you think will win the maximum gold medals?