[I call this as Pei Qian Zhuan Yao He]--Olympics 2008: What Price International Glory?
7/16/2008
www.wsj.com
China's spending for the Olympics, estimated to total $42 billion, is shattering records for hosting the Games and prompting concern about whether a developing country should spend so much for a two-week sports show.
The tab for China's massive Olympic projects -- ranging from a $3 billion airport terminal to the $500 million 'Bird's Nest' National Stadium -- dwarf the Athens Olympic budget of some $15 billion, which helped drive Greece into debt. London, the host of the 2012 Games, is already embroiled in controversy over its growing Olympics tab.
In Beijing, few details are being spared. Along Jing Shun Lu, a formerly dusty road in the capital's suburbs, the government spent $30 million for an Olympic facelift, including trees, flowers and an ornamental wall. The road is a secondary access route to the city's airport, and near the rowing competition venue. Meanwhile, people who used to live along the road have been given a small sum in compensation and forced to move.
Economically speaking, China can afford the biggest Olympics in history. The bill amounts to a small fraction of its gross domestic product, expected to be nearly $4 trillion this year, and corporate sponsors have underwritten some of the costs. Moreover, most of the spending isn't going toward running the Games, but toward roads, subways and airports that will be beneficial over the longer term.
Still, some development experts wonder whether aspects of the supersize investment are sending the wrong message. China's rapid economic growth in the past 30 years has dramatically raised the living standards of many of its people, but tens of millions remain mired in poverty. State spending on health care and other social-welfare programs has lagged behind other spending.
'It is worth it politically, but not economically,' says Minxin Pei, a senior associate in the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'There are many competing needs in China...We all know that government spending is based on the principle of politics first and economics second.'
Abroad, China's big budget raises the stakes for future hosts, which are likely to come from the ranks of developing nations more susceptible to booms and busts. Russia will host the Winter Olympics in 2014, and Brazil is a finalist for 2016.
Holger Preuss, a professor of sports economics at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, says Beijing has set a precedent that future hosts, including London, won't be able to match. 'Many IOC [International Olympic Committee] members are already thinking we have to find a way to reduce the size of the Games to make more cities able to really host the Games. Because if it continues -- just think of $50 billion -- maybe only 10 cities in the world can afford 50 billion.'
Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director, says he is 'satisfied' with Beijing's spending choices. He says the tab looks high because the government in China is responsible for projects that have been run by the private sector in other host cities -- or that simply weren't needed, because in developed countries existing infrastructure was more advanced.
'It is very difficult to compare one city to another,' says Mr. Felli. The operational budget for the Games can't be conflated with the total sum that a country 'invests for its future,' he says.
Organizers of the Beijing Games didn't respond to questions about costs.
The tally of $42 billion, or about 290 billion yuan, was calculated by the government-run Beijing Olympic Research Center. Olympic facilities and operational costs account for just 31.8 billion yuan of that total, with another 71.3 billion yuan on efforts to clean up the environment. The vast majority -- some 180 billion yuan -- has been spent on infrastructure development, including roads and highways.
Both China and the IOC have moved to address concerns about cost. After Beijing won the Games in 2001, IOC president Jacques Rogge promised to study ways to reduce spending. 'We realize the size of the Games is getting a little bit too big and getting to the limits of what a city can deliver,' he said. During the 2004 Games, mindful of the economic toll Athens's spending would take, the IOC again warned Beijing to scale back the blueprints for some of its arenas.
Some of China's Olympic projects are of questionable long-term value in a nation with such pressing needs. The Bird's Nest, for example, has no clearly defined purpose after the Games -- and no roof to protect it during the city's frigid winters and hot, rainy summers. Even cities not hosting Olympic events are getting Olympic makeovers. The Inner Mongolian provincial capital, Hohhot, got a new $227 million airport to serve as a backup to Beijing's own giant new airport terminal during the Olympics. Among some Chinese officials, there's a saying: 'The Olympics are a basket, and it contains whatever you put in it.'
Most Chinese people say they welcome the Olympics, but the devastation wrought by the May earthquake in Sichuan province has brought forward some rare critiques of government extravagance. 'Our national economic conditions at this moment do not allow us to waste money on the Games,' wrote Li Song, a reporter for the state-owned Liao Wang magazine on July 9. 'We have to calculate carefully and budget strictly to save any possible money for the earthquake relief in Sichuan province.'
The article complained about activities designed to mark the number 2008 or win Guinness World Records, such as a concert featuring 2008 traditional Chinese instruments.
Human-rights groups say they fear critics of Olympics excess and corruption have been silenced or arrested by the government in China. 'Until there is a full, accurate, transparent accounting for the full Olympics expenditures -- not just estimates and budgeted figures -- you can't really argue anything about . . . costs being reasonable,' says Sharon Hom, the executive director of New York-based Human Rights in China.
China has also attempted to show sensitivity to charges of excess, especially after the earthquake, in which thousands of children died in sometimes shoddily constructed schools. Authorities removed an official in charge of Sichuan schools from the torch relay, and also delayed a scheduled May appearance of the torch in the quake zone until early August. Lately, some Chinese academics have noted a shift in official government rhetoric about the Games, from the 'best Olympics in history' to a 'high-quality Olympics with Chinese characteristics.'
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, says that before this year, the Olympics was meant to be 'a demonstration of China's new rising and greatness and international responsibility.' Now, he says, the shift reflects a need to be more realistic, an acknowledgment that the event will not solve all of China's problems.
While Mr. Shi doesn't sense a backlash about the cost, he says that concerns could grow if the Games do not go well. 'The final judgment can only be made on the last day,' he says.
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Stacy Meichtry |
