Left Flank

Orville Schell is cautious Beijing's lack of confidence as manifested in its actual record of governance. It's a problem other East Asian nations still have.

But, now that the Games have ended, Chinese leaders cannot quite say, «Mission accomplished.»

While China's achievement is worthy of genuine esteem, its efforts to gain a full measure of international respect and real «great power» status will not succeed until it matches its new economic and military power with a certain essential moral force. That, in turn, requires a society and a leadership that seeks to be exemplary in all ways that make human beings more human, including respect for truthfulness, openness, tolerance, and people's right to disagree with their government.

I fear that China's leaders and people will continue to feel a certain gnawing, inchoate sense of deficiency and incompleteness in their quest for global respect until they find the strength to begin addressing the crucial, but elusive, issue of making China an ethical, as well as an economic and military, power. For a country steeped in millennia of Confucianism, the need for ethical leadership should be clear.

To fully address the question of the moral and ethical base of a new form of Chinese governance, China's government and its people must be able to look back freely and come to terms with their recent history: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the events of 1989, Tibet, and other sensitive issues. They must also freely be able to discuss the future and what kind of society they wish to see rise from the ashes of Mao's revolution.

I make these somewhat critical observations about China not with any sense of moral superiority or a wish to relieve myself of the responsibility to level the same critique at my own country's recent failures. As most of the world knows, America's quest to maintain its claim to the title of «greatness», has, of late, also been elusive.

Arriving from different staring points, both the United States and China now find themselves confronting a similar challenge: restoring global trust and respect. Their success inevitably requires directly confronting their evident moral failures.

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Tion Kwa captures in one neat essay how unsettling Beijing's opening ceremony appeared to free, modern East Asians.

What I found particularly disquieting about the opening ceremony in Beijing was the mass sublimation of individuality in the service of the state. The conformity to script and attention to stage direction by a cast of thousands, while awe inspiring, also represents a negation of the creativity of self-expression. Of course, there is choreographed order in Western dance and music as well. But there was something about the Chinese government's ability to stage-manage so many thousands so precisely that set this show apart from anything undertaken even by Cecil B. DeMille or Las Vegas.

No one would suggest that Zhang Yimou, the Chinese filmmaker who directed the opening night gala, or the other choreographers and artists involved were simply out to score a point for communism. But, while the Chinese authorities wanted the Olympics to showcase a China that is industrializing, modern, and prosperous, it unwittingly put on a display that recalled the Mao-era mass parades in Tiananmen Square, albeit with much advanced technology and pyrotechnics.

It is not easy to think of such a display as being in line with modern norms. The Chinese economy may be more market-oriented today than ever before, but, because the Communist Party is still in charge, China remains out of sync with those parts of Asia and the rest of the world where communism has long since come to be viewed as an anachronistic oddity.

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Dominique Moisi argues that Russia's recent invasion of Georgia is imperialistic, not cold war, behavior.

The current crisis in the Caucasus does not mark the return of the Cold War, nor is it likely to mark the start of open warfare between Russia and the West; it is, more simply, the return of the traditional imperialism practiced by the Russian Empire more than a century ago.

China is, with the exception of Tibet, a satisfied and confident status-quo empire. Russia by contrast is a revisionist imperialist power, whose lack of self-confidence is returning to haunt the world.

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South Korean hurt feelings about Chinese anti-Korean sentiments supposedly (it's a two-week cesspool of nationalism after all!) expressed at the Beijing Olympics are a bit rich.

The reversal began with Korea registering the Gangneung Danoje Festival with UNESCO. Claims spread that Dano was originally a Chinese festival, but Korea had stolen it. This continued into complaints that Korea did not respect Chinese culture and was stealing Chinese history.

Later, the Chinese launched indiscriminate attacks on Korean claims of origination. Groundless or highly doubtful claims that Chinese characters, acupuncture and even the historic Chinese beauty Xi Shi were Korean were depicted as established theory in Korea and spread through the Internet. A psychological framework similar to that shown by Koreans protesting China's Northeast Project took root on the Internet in China.

This online anti-Korean sentiment spread thanks to young Chinese Internet users born in the 1980s and 1990s. These youngsters, who grew up enjoying the sweet fruits of Chinese reform and openness, have been brought together by a bottomless pride in their homeland. For them, Korea is no longer a subject of admiration as it was in the past. Anti-Korean sentiment is the path through which their patriotism and nationalism is directed at Korea's negative side.

On the other hand, the way Korea looks at China is not keeping up with these changes in China. The refusal to recognize China's growth into a major economic power, or psychological insecurity fearing such growth, is making difficult a balanced view of China. An official from the local Koreans' association said it seems neither the view that China is still a backwards country nor the view that it's a great power can explain what is going on.

That China's need for Korea is dropping is counted as a factor in the failure to block the spread of anti-Korean sentiment. China, which developed on the Korean model of labor intensive industries, now wants higher-stage industries, but Korean know-how is not satisfying this desire. The view that Korea is a competitor, not a model, is dominating Chinese magnanimity towards Korea.

As Ampontan points out, South Koreans are only miffed at how the Chinese are stealing their trademark virtue in the region. At the risk of sounding polyannish...

It would be far wiser for the South Koreans to find ways to encourage more amicable feelings toward Japan among its people than to exacerbate the tendency to indulge in unproductive emotionalism. They are the only two countries in the region sharing a commitment to democratic governments, free markets, and the rule of law. If they dropped the game, Japan could be the best friend South Korea has in the neighborhood. The potential benefits of partnership are enormous if the country ever chooses an option besides cutting off its nose to spite its face.

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And, nominations for top prize for inconsiderateness: Moscow, after marring the opening of the Olympics, asks for Beijing's blessing in the Caucasus.

«Russia's main aim is to get support from the [Shanghai Cooperation O]rganization for its military action and approval in one form or another for recognizing South Ossetian independence,» an analyst in Moscow for the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, Yevgeny Volk, said. «It is clear that Russia is using it as a counterweight to the West in the conflict and its recognition of South Ossetia.»

While Russia wants diplomatic recognition from members of the group, Mr. Volk said such a decision for countries like China and India, which have separatist regions of their own, would amount to «chopping the branch they sit on.»

The Shanghai organization in recent months has condemned an attempt by Taiwan to seek greater international recognition and unrest in Tibet.

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Beijing Olympics: sigh of relief; next up: South Africa's 2010 World Cup. What could South Africans get for its five sports stadiums, costing over a billion dollars?

There's little evidence, though, to suggest that investing in a major sporting event does much to help transform a country's economy. Commentators now even commonly refer to an «Olympic hangover» when overheated economies decline after hosting the games. In fact, since 1956, Olympic hosts have seen their GDP growth fall by an average of nearly 7 percent in the two years following the big event.

The money that South Africa is spending on the five stadiums alone could have increased its 2008 healthcare funding by 3 percent, expanded education funding by 8 percent, or paid the salaries of 80,000 Johannesburg police officers - investments that would undoubtedly have paid dividends long after the stadiums have fallen into disuse.

After that, it's Poland's and Ukraine's 2012 Euro Cup. Oh, and there's another Russian Olympics in 2014 nations can fight over boycotting in 2014.

Joshua Keating also offers a succinct post-mortem on Beijing's Olympics:

China's debut as an Olympic host was hardly the unqualified public relations nightmare that many people expected, especially after the Tibet riots and the subsequent torch-tour fiasco. If China's goal was simply to host a fantastic Olympics, its $40 billion was well spent. In terms of sheer spectacle, impressive facilities, and the host country's athletic performance, the games were without peer in Olympic history. But if the goal was to change international minds about China, its success was mixed at best.

With the deceptions during the opening ceremonies, the arrest of eight American demonstrators, and China's failure to keep its promises about political openness, the Olympics have only reinforced the conventional view of the Chinese state as capable of outstanding feats of organization and social engineering, but also secretive, repressive, and hostile to basic human rights.

Finally, good advice for confident leaders in developing countries.

In truth, events like the Olympics and the World Cup are the farthest thing from appropriate showcases for economic progress—they're more likely to highlight a developing country's faults. Yanking a country like South Africa out of any historical context invariably emphasizes the areas where it falls short, rather than the progress it has made. Once the dazzle of a spectacular opening ceremony or high-tech stadium fades, the world will remember a developing country struggling with less glamorous challenges such as pollution, crime, and crumbling infrastructure. In the long run, emerging countries that bet their reputations on a sporting event may wish they had spent a little more time boosting their number of exports or college graduates rather than playing games.

Not only will the economic benefits fall off, but the respectability boosts will also dwindle, if the G& ever acknowledges any regard for the shrimp among whales.

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Jaime Metzl sums up neatly what I've felt for a while, but with both the Beijing Olympics and the Georgian-Russian episode all the more urgently, in one metaphor: it's another «Sputnik moment.

The Beijing Olympics could be remembered as a new «Sputnik moment» for the US, inspiring the country to meaningfully face the music of a changing world. But America can make it so only by recognizing the great challenges it faces and taking bold steps towards addressing them, at home and with allies abroad.

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