Tony Klinger

I can’t help but be excited when another Olympic opening ceremony is about to begin. The pageantry, the flags, even the interminable march of the athletes into the stadium. I love it all, but, and this year it’s a big but, I can’t help notice an almost military edge to all the celebrations.

There’s a Chinese triumphalism about the whole celebration, and I can accept that. They have, as a nation, done outstandingly well in most measurable respects since Chairman Mao kicked the big Communist bucket.

China has gone from nowhere to become a huge manufacturing powerhouse and has done so with remarkable effort and self discipline. You can’t help but be reminded of the history of Britain’s achievements when it became the industrial leader of the world, or later of America’s similar and explosive growth. The Chinese people appear to be very proud of these achievements, and only the most mean minded would begrudge them some form of pause for reflection and self-satisfaction. Like us, their people have worked for and won their place in the sun.

You can have no doubt that the Olympics will be organized with immense efficiency and a plastered on smile that will not disappear for the length of the Games. The government of China is all powerful within the framework of the Communist Party and the Army. These two central forces allow whatever small democracy there is or might be in the future. It is a totally pragmatic organization within which dissent is not permitted once a decision has been reached.

Presently the Chinese government is constrained to act in a more democratic manner because that is what it promised it would do to the Olympic organizing committee when it was trying to attract the Games to Beijing. Many people in the West don’t appreciate that China almost always keeps its promises. They will do precisely what they understand themselves to have promised for exactly the length of these Games, no more and no less. Evidence of the Chinese keeping their international promises are evident in Hong Kong, but it must be understood, they keep their word in the way they interpret them, not to suit us. So there will be the agreed open access on all questions to anyone, as interpreted by our Chinese hosts, for our journalists, and in a couple of weeks this will be turned back off. The internet is being freely accessed for now, and then it will disappear just like the snow in the summer. You will see protests from various groups like Free Tibet, and no one will get shot unless they are violent first. Instead of imprisoning these dissidents and throwing away the key the authorities will seek to slap them on the wrist and send them on their way. But their government will be taking photographs, keeping records and will deal with their own dissidents as soon as our back has turned after the Games.

The question is whether any of these “freedoms” are going to be anything more than transient and expedient. I don’t believe the Chinese government has made any such promises and therefore there is very little chance of them making any changes to their Pandora’s Box country unless they are forced by circumstances, as yet, unknown, to do so. The truth, if they were to understand it, is, that they should be working to a more democratic state because that’s what will help them achieve their next stage of development. They will probably end up learning this the hard way.

As things stand you have to feel a little uneasy at Games that more than hint at the memory of the Nazi party jamboree which was the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In the meantime who has the popcorn, fire up the HD TV, let’s try and have some fun.