Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Inside Game
By APRIL RABKIN
Published: July 2, 2008
Beijing
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/opinion/02rabkin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
LAST week, amid continuing calls from activists in Europe and the United States to boycott the Olympics to protest China’s record on human rights, came a rare rebuke from the International Olympic Committee. The committee expressed disappointment with a speech in which Tibet’s Communist Party leader used the occasion of an Olympic torch ceremony to denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
What the committee and the rest of the world don’t realize is how little China cares what they think. Here in Beijing, the Olympic Games are primarily for domestic consumption, justifying the government’s new global power to its own people.
My neighbor’s 12-year-old son has seen half a dozen movies starring the five balloon-headed Olympic mascots: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. He has been reminded of the Olympics every day at school and on the street by billboards depicting the masses as a gray ocean converging like a wave to lift up a red-uniformed basketball player making a layup. He listens to Olympic tunes — one of which sounds like a drill sergeant singing along to carousel music.
For millenniums, Chinese dynasties have claimed the “mandate of heaven” to justify their existence. On this score, there hasn’t really been any great leap forward. Inept dynasties augur instability and are overthrown. China still has no democracy and no real sense of political stability. Rulers fear revolution, and just as strongly, so do the people. And nationalism is the dominant strategy for preventing it. With a well-run Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party can prove its legitimacy and its continued mandate.
By September, it is conceivable that China’s global standing could plummet while China’s citizens see the Olympics as an astounding success. Despite the Internet and the lifting of some restrictions on journalism, there’s still an ocean-wide gap between the international and domestic news media. During the torch relay in Paris this spring, for instance, Chinese TV viewers saw mainly the heroic efforts of the wheelchair-bound amputee who used her upper body to shield the flame from a lunging protester and not the mass of pro-Tibet demonstrators.
In junior high and high school here, two semesters of history instruction focus on the humiliation of China by Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States during the last centuries. International criticism is described as a continuation of this legacy, and for other countries to condemn the regime is to disparage the Chinese people. Foreign criticism strengthens domestic loyalty to the regime, so the threat of a boycott of the Olympics in August only bolsters nationalism.
In March, an exhibition baseball game in Beijing between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres provided a sneak preview of what to expect at the Olympics. A 16-foot sign at the stadium listed 100 banned items, including, oddly, brooms. The singing of the United States national anthem was forbidden. The police seized and interrogated a Korean fan of the Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park for holding a sign reading “Park is No. 1.” While foreign spectators were taken aback by the security measures, the Chinese were impressed that the teams were there at all.
For the Olympic athletes, victories remain to be won. But for Chinese leaders, the competition is pretty much over. They triumphed in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee selected Beijing as the site for this year’s games and hundreds of thousands of Beijingers streamed into Tiananmen Square to celebrate. It was one of the biggest gatherings there since the 1989 massacre.
This August a few world leaders may boycott the opening ceremony. But the Games will go forward and be televised to what China will most likely declare is the largest worldwide audience ever. The Chinese government will have pulled off a modern Olympics — as close to a mandate from heaven as could be imagined by any dynasty of any era.
April Rabkin has written for Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
北京奥运，自己玩的游戏
多维社记者陈湘编译报导/国际奥委会最近在欧洲和美国维权人士一片抵制奥运会、抗议中国人权纪录的呼声中，对中国发动了一次少见的非难。在一次演说中，国际奥委会官方说西藏的中国地方政府领导人利用奥运圣火传递仪式的机会攻击老佛爷，对此国际奥委会表示失望。
纽约时报记者艾普尔·拉博金（APRIL RABKIN）撰写的报导“中国的内部游戏”（China’s Inside Game）认为，奥委会和世界其他国家没有意识到的是，中国其实根本就会不在乎他们是怎么想的。对北京来说，举办奥运会主要是为了国内的需求，为的是向国民们证实北京政府具有什么样的崭新的全球性的实力而已。
这位记者说，他邻居家一名12岁的孩子已经看过好几部由贝贝、晶晶、欢欢、迎迎和妮妮几个奥运福娃为主角的电影。学校都向学生们提醒着奥运的到来，大街上的一个描绘犹如大海一样的民众托起穿红球衣的运动员上篮的大广告牌，也再无时不刻地宣告着奥运会的即将来临。他还听奥运主题的音乐。
千百年来，中国王朝一直以“天命”之名来说明他们统治的合法化。在这方面，中国一直都没有实现任何真正意义上的大跃进。昏庸的王朝注定引发动荡，然后被推翻。中国现在仍然没有民主和真正意义的政治稳定。统治者害怕革命，老百姓也同样害怕动乱。而民族主义则是防范革命的主要策略。而通过成功举办奥运会，中国共产党就可以证明他们的合法性，从而延续“天命”。
到九月时，完全可以想象得到的是，即便中国在全球的地位可能在下滑，而中国民众仍然认为奥运会是一次惊人的成功。尽管，网络的存在和部分新闻报道的限制已被取消，但是，国际社会和中国本土新闻媒体的报导仍然有着大洋一样的差异。例如，今年春季在巴黎进行奥运火炬传递时，中国观众看到的主要画面，是那名坐着轮椅的残疾人在面对一名示威者抢夺时，用身体来保护火炬的英雄行为，而不是有大量支持东躲的示威者。
在中国的初中和高中，有两个学期的历史课程，是集中在教育学生中国在上世纪，所受到的英美法德日俄等列强造成的屈辱。而国际社会对中国的批评，被描述为这种历史的延续，另外，其他国家攻击中共政权，就是在诋毁中国人民。外国批评只会加强国民对中共的忠诚，所以，抵制八月份奥运会的威胁只会巩固民族主义信念。
今年3月份，洛衫机道奇队和圣地亚哥教士队在北京进行的棒球表演赛，让我们看到了一次奥运的预演：体育馆内挂着一幅16尺长的标牌，列着100种禁止携带的物品，奇怪的是，其中还包括扫帚。也禁止唱美国国歌。警察逮捕并审问了一名道奇投手朴赞浩（Chan Ho Park）的球迷，就因为他举着一个写着“朴赞浩第一”的标语。外国观众所吃惊的是赛场四周的保安措施，而中国人所关注的是，这两只球队果然真的来到了北京。
对奥运运动员来说，胜利还需要他们去赢取，但是，对中国领导人来说，竞赛几近结束。早在2001年奥委会选择北京做为今年奥运会的举办城市时，他们就胜利了，当时，成千上万名北京居民涌进天安门广场欢庆成功申奥。这是自1989年（2+2+2）·（2+2）事件以来，天安门广场最大规模的一次民众聚集。
今年八月，可能会有数名世界领袖抵制出席奥运会开幕仪式。但是，奥运会将照常进行，而且，会向全球转播，中国多半会宣称这是历史上世界观众最多的一次。中国政府将举办一次现代奥运会，要比任何朝代所能想象到的都更要接近到“天命”了。
