8-31-08, 11:29 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) (25.8.2008) made its assessment of the Beijing Olympics under the headline 'China misses games opportunity.' It trotted out the usual criticisms with a new one thrown in – 'too much organization' and 'robbing the events of a lively audience' because some events had empty seats. If my memory serves me, some events at the Sydney Olympics also had empty seats.

The Herald, of course, was not alone: the hypocrisy of the mass media and its short term and one-sided memory has no limits.

But the main complaint of the SMH is that China did not take the opportunity to become an instrument of 'liberal reform' — as western democracies are supposed to be. The newspaper claims that the 'preceding torch relay suggests that sense of humiliation has been deepened by nearly 20 years of deliberate Communist Party propaganda'.

That the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 — almost 60 years ago, that the stadium was stacked to the rafters for many events and that the men’s 40 kilometer marathon was witnessed by crowds along the road has escaped the SMH editorial writers.

The SMH hoped that the Games would '…..jolly them out of xenophobic resentment at their century of humiliation.'

Actually the Games have projected China onto the world stage as never before as part of their own 'opening to the outside world.' And it is this development that the western scribblers detest and fear, and do not understand – and never will.

However, there are some saner voices coming through. In the same issue of the Herald former Prime Minister Paul Keating writes with historical perspective. He says: 'We are living through one of those rare yet transforming events in history, a shift in the power in the world from West to East. For 500 years Europe dominated the world. ... now it is drifting into relative decline.'

Paul Keating says that the western critics 'ignore the massive leaps in progress, of income growth, of shelter, of the alleviation of poverty, of dwindling infant mortality, of education, of, by any measure, the much better life now being experienced by the great majority of Chinese.'

He goes on: the Western critics 'feeling the epicenter of the world changing but not at all liking it, seek to put down these vast societies on the basis that their political and value systems don’t match up to theirs.'

Keating slams both Bill Clinton and George Bush and speaks of '16 critical years (in which) two American Presidents did nothing to better shape the institutions of world governance.'

He may have also mentioned huge strides in scientific and technological excellence of which China’s Olympic medal count and the presentation of the opening and closing ceremonies is but two reflections.

Keating concludes: 'The philosopher Immanuel Kant said (that) someday there will be a universal peace; the only question he said, is will this come about by human insight or by catastrophe, leaving no other outcome possible.' 'Humankind demands that proposition be settled in the former not the latter.'

So there we have it!

The real truth is that these changes would not have come about if there had been no communist-led national government building steadily and step by step a socialist society and economy. The Party is dedicated to lifting the living standards of all the people, to education, housing, health care, to scientific endeavor and above all, to the peaceful, negotiated settlement of international disputes.

These developments are truths that the western developed countries have to think about as they will bring about a renaissance in values, culture and attitudes, and further improvements in living standards, economic and social security and much else.

The situation in India is an obvious comparison. With a similar huge population of about one billion, India is treading the capitalist path whereby the large majority remain in poverty while a small elite grow wealthier. Look at the Olympic medal table as one means of comparison.

The historical march towards progressive changes will continue just as surely as the fact that the economic and social tectonic plates are moving East.