Bye-Bye 'Olympics Excuse'

Posted August 23, 2008

For a decade, whenever faced with a difficult decision, China’s leaders have used a convenient way out: Let’s wait until after the Olympics.

To ensure it would win the right to host the Games, China developed what its leaders have labeled a “no enemies” foreign policy.  In practice, this meant treating every tin-pot dictator as an equal and keeping every Third World corrupt regime sweet with aid, subsidies and bribes. When it came to relations with the major democracies, the policy meant the creation of an equilibrium mostly based on false promises. The Olympics excuse has kept China’s traditional rivalry problems with a range of countries—including Russia, India, Japan and South Korea—on hold.

The Olympics excuse has also been used on domestic issues. At least two Communist Party Congresses, where national strategy is debated and fixed, have danced around the major issues for the past decade. The full legitimization of private property, the redefinition of the role of the Communist Party, the development of a credible system of social protection, and the much-talked-of decentralization have all been touched upon but left for “after the Olympics.” The long promised review of the controversial one-child policy would also have to be tackled, especially as it is impact on China’s demographic composition can no longer be ignored.

Other issues left untouched thanks to the Olympics excuse include the modernization and reorganization of the Chinese army, a vast and highly costly but inefficient machine, the streamlining of a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy and a rejuvenation of the leadership at middle and lower levels.

Finally, the Olympics excuse was used to justify lack of action on such explosive issues as ethnic unrest and religious grievances, examples of which sprung up all over China before the Games, with at least one demonstration in the tens of thousands and insurrections and bombings among the Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang.

The Olympics were supposed to finalize China’s return to the mainstream of international life, opening the way for its assumption of a leadership role in the global arena in an uncertain era.

Waiting for the Olympics was also used by the outside world to justify what amounts to a policy gap on China. Optimists hoped that the Olympics would persuade the Chinese leaders to open the country further and adopt more moderate policies at home and abroad. The idea was to do nothing to upset what was supposed to be China's long march toward reform democratization. Pessimists, on the other hand, believed that there was nothing that the outside world could do to influence developments inside a still hermetic political system.

So, what is going to happen when the Games are over and the Olympics excuse is gone? Will China cast a fresh glance at a foreign policy that has made it the mainstay of several despotic and terror-sponsoring regimes? Or will Beijing decide to make the final break with an autocratic system that still uses Communism as a label?

The Games revealed China as a new nation with a great deal of positive energy. They also added a major element to the treasury of common memories that ultimately constitute every nation. It is no longer the Long March led by Mao Zedong that constitutes the central theme of modern China's national memory. At the same time the nightmare of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is fading behind the joyful fireworks of he Olympics. At the time of this writing, terrorists had not succeeded in disrupting the Games, and even the most ardent dissidents decided to put their grievances on the back burner until after the event.

And after the Games, for China, the really hard work begins. Will the giant clam try to shut itself again when it no longer needs the goodwill of the outside world? Or will it feel more self confident as a result and decide to open itself further.

The conventional wisdom at this time is that China’s adoption of a modified form of capitalism and the pluralism that it will eventually generate is now irreversible. Conventional wisdom, however, is not always right. The Chinese ruling elite is divided between reformists and supporters of the status quo ante. Portraits of the Great Helmsman may have disappeared from public view for the duration of the Games. But a good chunk of the elite, still drunk on the heady wine of Maoism, is biding it time. The final purge, both in terms of policy and personnel, has not yet taken place.

For a decade, China has lived in what amounted to an historic parenthesis. Now that parenthesis is closing, we must all wonder what is going to happen during the next decade. The truth is that the international system needs a positive input from China. A policy of nay-saying and prevarication cannot deal with dangers, such as nuclear proliferation spearheaded by North Korea and Iran, that could ultimately affect China's own security. Domestically, no amount of nationalistic rhetoric could satisfy demands for greater ethnic, cultural and religious freedoms. The growing urban middle class will not remain content with Guizot-style get-rich-and-shut-up politics. The 300 million or so poverty stricken roaming seasonal workers could emerge as a veritable human tsunami, destroying all that China has built since the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping a generation ago.

Just as the world needs China, China also needs the world. However, before China is able to punch at its own weight in the international arena, it needs to decide what kind of society it wants to be. The Beijing Games are coming to a close, let the debate begin.

Mr. Taheri’s new book, “The Persian Night,” is scheduled for publication by Encounter Books later this year.