Are You Ready for a China Century

The Beijing Summer Olympics Games 2008 has now come to an end - and end marked by a lower key fireworks display than those that opened the game and a handing of the torch to London for the 2012 games. At least, though, the fireworks that ended the games were real...we think.

How instructive was it that so much of the pageantry behind the games was just that - pageantry - a thin veneer covering a darker reality? A computer-aided fireworks display and a lip-synched Chinese National Anthem for the opening ceremony. How perfectly symbolic were these to kick off the games: the nation that invented fireworks, put on a display aided by technology and covered up the perceived imperfections of a 7-year old girl because she wasn't attractive enough. Add to this the possibility the Chinese government aided the Chinese Olympic Committee in putting under-aged gymnasts on their team and you have a pretty clear picture.

As part of the International Olympic Committee's approval for the Beijing games was the requirement there be protests allowed, and the Chinese government complied through providing an official protest area. There were 77 applications to protest received - a disproportionally small number to begin with, none of which were approved. There were also apparently 22 more inquiries. No wonder, then, that protesters took the show on the road and protested the torch relay. Curiously, 74% - or about 55 of the applications - were withdrawn because whatever the petitioner concerns were, they were "properly addressed by authorities." Yeah, things like labor abuses and government repression are usually just handed through having been addressed through proper channels. One Chinese pair - two women in their late 70's from the Chinese provinces - were sentenced to 2-years "re-education through labor" for having simply applied to protest.

If what happened to these two is any indication as to what may have happened as a result of the approximately 22 applications that were not withdrawn, it makes one wonder why there were so many applications filed to begin with. One suspects that perhaps that for an application to have been "properly addressed by authorities" was to have a goon squad show up at your front door and explain that part of the application fee would be at least 2-years in a labor camp.

This from a country that desperately wants to be accepted as a world leader, and has done it's best to demonstrate that it will behave responsibly and in accord with international norms. However, that's what I find most troubling. They have done their best, but they have responded; they haven't lead. They have accommodated demands and requests, but they haven't really understood the meaning of those demands and requests. They have complied with the letter, but not the spirit; they've complied but not accepted.

China drives the global economic bus and will for likely the next century. Their economy is no monolithic that if all the jobs in the US were exported there, they would STILL have a labor surplus. According to Manufacturing and Technology News in May 2006, the average Chinese manufacturing worker was making $0.57 an hour, $0.41 an hour if they were in the vast rural areas, meaning that for most of the world it's cheaper to buy their products - and because they have such a large labor surplus, it's unlikely that there will be any real wage inflation pressures any time soon.

Because it's cheaper to buy their products, their manufacturing sector is exponentially expanding; it can expand exponentially because there are so many surpluses built into the economy with little real regulation. And because their industry - like ours - is based on oil, the price will only continue to increase, affecting our industry and our ability to compete. The Chinese government can - and will - buy oil no matter what the price.

Given what we have learned about China over the three weeks of the XXIX Olympiad, does it give you any pause when next you buy an off priced item manufactured in China? Remember that you're paying for that item not only at the store, but at the gas pump; that those two little old ladies who wanted to protest the demolition of their homes are paying for that item with 2-years of forced labor. Those are just some of the hidden costs.

If it affects the glory and prestige of the motherland, the individual is sacrificed. What the Chinese government hasn't yet learned is that by allowing criticism of the development of the motherland, they actually gain prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world. If they have learned it, it means that they just don't care. Either way, you have to pay attention. This is not a government that shares internationally accepted norms of political dissent and individual freedoms.

Are you ready for a China century?