The Olympic legacy

The Games may be Beijing's big coming-out party, but once the last medal is awarded, what's next for the Chinese capital?

Since 2001’s announcement that Beijing would host the 29th Olympiad, China’s capital has undergone change on an unprecedented scale. Up to 1.5 million people have been displaced to make way for a totally new city, at a cost of 40 billion dollars. But what will happen after the Games? We ask five experts how the Olympics has changed Beijing – from its culture and economy to architecture and the environment – and what legacy it will leave behind.

Societal change

The Olympics is like a gush of wind. It’ll blow away some dead leaves, but leaves fall no matter what – unless you cut down the trees.

Beijing residents are generally proud of their city playing the host. More infrastructure is being built, which will bring permanent benefits to locals. The iconic new buildings, controversial at the beginning, may end up projecting an image of innovation and risk-taking onto the world stage. But Beijingers will take longer to love them, maybe after a wave of positive international reaction sweeps in.

The city is getting a facelift – to the point that it may trade the magnificence of a grand dame for the modernity and squeaky cleanness of a trophy wife. The boisterous vibrancy of organic change has given way to uniformity and artificiality, heavy on façade but light on substance. It is easier to change the outside – roads, buildings, street lamps, et cetera; it’s another matter to change a mindset or an old habit. Will people queue for an arriving bus once the flag-waving nannies leave the bus stops? Will people stop spitting when nobody is watching them?

The Games have raised our self-awareness more than anything else: How shall we conduct ourselves in front of swarms of visitors? This line of reasoning runs along the old notion of ‘face’ – you save face by averting an embarrassment; you gain face by doing something that receives applause; and you lose face when something you don’t want to be seen is actually seen by others, rather than the fact that you did it. Herein lies the rub: What changes do we desire? Behaviour or mentality? Behaviour that is visible to outsiders or behaviour that means something to yourself?

The other day, I spotted a family of expats squeezing into a crowded subway car. After a moment of hesitation, two young men gave their seats to the old lady and two small children of the expat family. I could almost sense a question fleeting through their minds: Is it something I’m supposed to do, or is it simply the right thing to do? Or in other words: do I offer my seats to make China look good, or is it just a random act of kindness?

From their acknowledgement of the expat family’s thanks, they probably shifted from the former to the latter. That is a good sign. Only when people find ease with the world can they gain the inner power to change their behaviour and let the Olympic spirit shine longer than the duration of the Games.

Raymond Zhou is a columnist for the China Daily and has published over 16 books. His latest, X-Ray Examining the China Enigma is out now.

Economic change

Call it the Curse of the Rings. Looking back at the last 11 Olympics, economic growth in each host country fell in the year after the Games, and there’s every chance that Beijing will follow suit. But that is because China’s growth is already gradually slowing from the breathless double-digit pace of the past five years; it will not be because the Olympics investment boom has fizzled out.

For a start, boom is too strong a word. Beijing makes only 3.7 per cent of China’s total output, and the US$40 billion or so shelled out on Olympics-related infrastructure is only about 1 per cent of total capital spending. Yes, Olympics projects have contributed 1.7 percentage points of the city’s GDP annual growth in the seven years since it won the bid for the Games, but there’ll be plenty of other projects to keep migrant construction workers busy once the athletes have flown home. The capital’s fathers have plans for 11 satellite cities, and expect Beijing’s metro to have replaced the London Underground as the world’s longest subway system by 2020. While the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube might not generate much growth in the future, Beijing will reap long-lasting economic benefits from Olympic investments, such as the third airport terminal and high-speed telecoms networks.

Other host cities made similar rosy calculations, of course, only to find themselves deep in debt. Poor Montreal didn’t clear its debts for the 1976 Olympics until thirty years later.

Budget transparency is not one of China’s strong points, and no one is saying how the bill for the Beijing Games will be paid, but it is clear the country can afford it. Thanks to surging tax revenues, China ran a budget surplus last year, and the government’s debt is minuscule.

There’s a popular fear that property prices in Beijing will slump after the Games. A short-lived swoon is possible because prices have been ramped up too fast, but the forces that have buoyed the property market across China, especially rising incomes and migration from the countryside in search of better jobs, are long-term trends. And Beijing, like any capital city, will remain a key place for doing business for domestic and foreign companies alike.

One big economic Olympic myth has already been shattered. People poured into the stock market last year, convinced the Party would not lose face by letting prices drop before the Games, yet since its October peak, the Shanghai market is down more than 50 per cent. When it comes to the Olympics, not everyone can strike gold.

Alan Wheatley is the China Economics Editor for Reuters.

Cultural change

As the 29th Olympiad opens in Beijing, it seems to be touching every aspect of daily life. Leveraged as the raison d’être for an astonishing array of art and cultural events, it appears to be setting the stage for a new phase of cultural life in the capital.

Present quality control is not an aspect with which anyone should take issue. It is an inevitable but fleeting aspect of world events. Of greater importance is the big picture: the enduring gains that might, or might not, ensue. I believe the gains will outweigh any tangible losses. The Olympics will affect all facets of life in China in the same way that China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation fostered change. Similarly, further back to 1978, the implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s reform policy set China on a new course, resulting in an enormous impact upon the cultural arena that was completely invisible until more than a decade later.

This impact should not translate as the event itself. The impact will lie in how it changes the mindset of the State, and the ambitions of the nation for China’s future. The Olympics will act as a conduit for change outside of all the temporal issues that have recently engendered frantic debate and posturing both abroad and within China. Again, the big picture is relevant here, for in terms of the moment, the Olympics is but a grand sports meet with complicated political strings attached. Its legacy will endure not for the event per se, but for the various innovations it has supported, which include architectural achievements like the Bird’s Nest, a futuristic design that was previously unimaginable given the State’s more pronounced preferences for the architectural equivalent of Chinoiserie. Ai Weiwei, consultant to the Bird’s Nest project, was not wrong to hope it might ‘stimulate minds about what human effort is capable of’. That is the mechanism the Olympic Games sets in motion.

While Ai Weiwei might talk of what he feels to be the problematic aspects of hosting an Olympiad in the name of the people – a people with no actual say in the matter – the fact that his opinions have been repeatedly reported in the Chinese press as well as the foreign media, suggests at least a space for discussion. As the Chinese say, a journey of 1,000 li begins with a single step – in which personal opinions can be aired. What is of more imperative to the advance of China’s culture is the raising of the bar, which means greater opportunities to see superior quality exhibitions, and productions that focus the energy necessary for artistic growth in all spheres, building on the diversity that has clearly already taken root.

Karen Smith is an art critic, curator and writer on contemporary art. Her book Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China is out now.

Environmental change

Visitors to Beijing for the Olympic Games next month will most likely have heard about the immense environmental challenge facing China’s capital. However, they have not had the opportunity to witness the drastic pace of change that has gripped Beijing in the city’s efforts to ‘Green’ the Games. Planning for this international mega event has presented unique environmental challenges and opportunities for Beijing as it has for all Olympic host cities.

In its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing made a commitment to host a ‘Green’ Olympics. In 2001, bold environmental promises were made by Beijing’s bid committee, including efforts to improve air quality so that it meets Chinese and World Health Organization standards, to use more renewable energy and natural gas throughout the city, and to implement stricter vehicle emission standards.

Much of Beijing’s efforts and successes are evident throughout the city. Beijing has added four new rail lines and strengthened vehicle exhaust emission standards to EURO IV, in an attempt to clean up its air. Beijing has also launched a fleet of 3,759 buses running on Compressed Natural Gas. This is one of the largest fleets of this kind operating anywhere in the world.

Some of these achievements represent the world’s best practice – a huge leap from the existing polluting or destructive technologies and systems currently in use throughout the developing world. For example, The Olympic Village and much of the newly constructed Olympic venues will showcase various state-of-the-art energy-saving technologies such as solar hot water, geothermal, solar PV and wind energy, a welcome shift away from polluting fossil fuels. Through these achievements, Beijing has been able to show that making the transition to more sustainable approaches is possible when a concerted effort is made.

In many areas, however, Beijing has missed an important opportunity to use the Games to further develop sustainable infrastructure for the city. For example, instead of pushing for a zero-waste policy for Beijing, the city has built incinerators. Beijing also missed the chance to set an example for good building practices by instituting clear and internationally recognisable procurement policies for construction material, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Many Olympic sponsors, such as Lenovo and Panasonic, should have also taken this opportunity to showcase their leadership in promoting environmentally friendly products for the Games. Furthermore, a lack of access to independent assessment information, as well as the ability to conduct a comprehensive independent evaluation, has also made it hard for independent organisations to verify the official information provided. The IOC should mandate more transparent environmental assessment methods, to make efforts measurable and comparable between host cities.

Despite the push for a ‘Green’ Olympics, the real environmental legacy of this event for Beijing and China lies in 2008 and beyond. Successful environmental policies and approaches in Beijing need to be extended to other developing cities across China. Civil society in China needs to recognise the important role it can play in taking direct environmental action. Only then can the ‘Green’ Olympics have a real impact on helping China to truly ‘Green’ its cities – today and tomorrow.

Lo Sze Ping is the Campaign Director of Greenpeace China.