Olympic Cloud

China has burst onto the world scene with a stunning display of creativity, organisation and single-minded purpose. Beijing’s dazzling Olympics – the greatest global show since the advent of satellite television during the Tokyo Olympics (1964) – is also a reminder that a nation’s prosperity and success can only be achieved through global integration. As a beneficiary of the world’s bounty, China now has a new responsibility.

As the depiction of the Silk Road at the opening ceremony hinted, one of the most prosperous periods in China’s long history was during the Tang dynasty when China was most open to the world. China emerged from its dark days of revolutionary isolation in the late 1970s, when vice premier Deng Xiaoping led economic reforms, which released the creativity and enterprise of its people. In the past 30 years, a new China has joined the world as a poster child for globalisation. I have witnessed China’s transformation from the drab, monochrome socialism I saw in my first visit in 1978 into a glittering landscape of skyscrapers, wide boulevards, high-speed trains and confident, nationalistic youth. That wealth and confidence was on vivid display last week in Beijing’s steel-framed Bird’s Nest Stadium.

The scale and pomp of the Beijing Olympics games establishes a new benchmark of globalisation since the ancient Greek sports ritual was revived in 1896. The rise of global commerce, earth-girdling transportation and telecommunication had by then created enough of a universalist sentiment for a French nobleman, Baron de Coubertin, to win support for relaunching the games. Those Athens Olympics were attended by 311 athletes from 11 countries, who travelled by steamship and train. Their exploits were reported by telegraph transmitted via under-sea cables.

In the years since, particularly since the advent of satellite television with its ever-growing footprint, multinationals have embraced the games as a powerful sales opportunity. The glamour of the games in full view of the world’s consumers has given sportsmanship a powerful new driver. The opportunity to host a glittering Olympics has produced a new international competition for power and glory. Since Deng’s reforms began transforming China, its leaders have sought global recognition for their modern state that embodies an ancient civilisation.

Nothing was more important than the Olympics, in which China has steadily increased its gold medal tally. China’s success in winning the GDP Olympics with double-digit growth for nearly two decades has given it the means —and the confidence — to hold the $43-billion Games. With 16,000 athletes from all over the world and 80 heads of states in attendance, the Beijing Olympics are as much a celebration of China as of globalisation. Multinational companies eager to tap into China’s huge market and a once-in-four-years global branding opportunity have plunked nearly a billion dollars in sponsorships; television companies buying up the rights to reach an estimated four billion viewers worldwide.

The biggest global show has also thrown a spotlight on the enormous problems created by the frenetic drive for economic growth. The cost of China’s breakneck industrialisation is visible in the smog that has covered Beijing for days prior to the Games. This, despite stringent restrictions that shut down polluting factories in the neighbourhood and removed a third of Beijing’s 3.3 million cars from the city’s roads. Just 1 per cent of China’s roughly 560 million urban residents are breathing air deemed safe by the European Union. China has achieved the distinction of being the world’s factory and built a record foreign reserve of $1.7 trillion, but in the process has also emerged as a leading global polluter. China is a major contributor to ‘The Asian Brown Cloud’ that covers large parts of the North American continent and could be accelerating the melting of glaciers and of ice over the Arctic Ocean. Billions of customers of Chinese exports and TV viewers who cheered China’s Olympic spectacle will also be affected by its rising pollution.

For the sake of its citizens and that of the planet, once the Games end, China’s next bid should be to win a different race — the one to create a Green China. Given the demonstrated creativity of its people and the determination of its leaders, China can harness its economy to clean energy and win even more lasting accolades for winning the battle to create a greener, sustainable planet.