The State of American Sports in 2012

(From RealClearSports)

Editor's note: In advance of President Obama's State of the Union address next week, RCP is rolling out daily "state of" reports to better frame the issues facing the nation. Today: The state of American sports.

On so many levels, most sports fans are happy to see 2011 in the rearview mirror. Both the NFL and NBA had prolonged work stoppages that threatened their seasons. Two major college programs - Ohio State and Miami - were exposed for rampant cheating involving criminal elements. And on top of all that, the alleged child rape scandal at Penn State not only obliterated its football coaching staff, but shook the entire university to its core.

So 2012 should be a stroll in the park then, with a restoration of the usual fun and games, right? While things can’t possibly be as bleak as they were last year, there are some dark clouds looming. Here’s a look ahead:

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

The NFL resolved its labor crisis with no loss of regular season games, and its perch as king of American sports was not threatened by the lockout - in fact, it might have become more entrenched. The $9 billion industry now is guaranteed labor peace for the next decade, and has further stuffed its coffers with a nine-year TV contract extension, worth $3 billion per year. Interest in the league is at an all-time high, buoyed in recent weeks by Tebow-mania, which just adds an embarrassment of riches to a league that hardly needs more publicity.

So the rest of the sports leagues will have to fight for the NFL’s leftover scraps. Major League Baseball managed to secure its own long-term labor peace without any rancor, though performance-enhancing drugs continue to cast a shadow on the sport, both in terms of Hall of Fame enshrinement of alleged PED users and the recent revelation that NL MVP Ryan Braun had failed a drug test.

The NBA had its own labor dispute, with the season saved by a last-minute deal that still came with a cost: the loss of about 20 percent of the games. But the sport with trouble ahead is the NHL, which already had one entire season wiped out in 2004-05. Donald Fehr, who spearheaded several of baseball’s labor wars, is now the head of the NHL players’ union. He had fired a shot across the owners’ bow last week by rejecting a realignment proposal, setting the stage for turbulent times ahead as the current deal is scheduled to expire in September.

COLLEGE SPORTS

NCAA President Mark Emmert might just have the most thankless task in sports. He has to navigate a billion-dollar industry masked as amateur athletics. The scandals at Ohio State and Miami (among others) demonstrated that the difficulties of maintaining a flawed system whose entire labor force is undercompensated 18-to-22-year-olds who can easily fall prey to nebulous outside influences.

A new proposal is on the table to pay compensation to college athletes in the form of a $2,000-per-month stipend. But that’s akin to patching up a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid. Emmert is considering more sweeping reforms that may more adequately address systemic issues facing the NCAA, which still operates an antiquated model that is no longer compatible - economically or otherwise - with the times.
(From RealClearSports)

College football, the real cash cow in college athletics, has specific problems to address that fall outside of the purview of the NCAA. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is universally derided, with criticism only intensifying after the most recent championship game that pitted two schools (Alabama and LSU) from the same conference. The BCS also has done its part to destroy century-long rivalries by ushering in a conference realignment frenzy. With its current TV deal scheduled to expire after the 2013 season, the BCS will be forced to contemplate a dramatic shakeup, likely as soon as this summer.

THE OLYMPICS

If it’s a leap year, it must be time for the Summer Olympics. The 2012 London Games are facing numerous challenges, not the least of which is measuring up to its predecessor. The 2008 Games were orchestrated nearly flawlessly by China’s communist government, which spared no expenses or manpower to make sure everything went smoothly in Beijing, including an event-best 51 gold medals for the Chinese.

The U.S. team finished a distant second with 36 golds, though it did garner a Games-high 110 total medals. The Americans are favored to top both standings this year in England, with high hopes for a number of athletes, particularly swimmer Michael Phelps, who is expected to add to his record 14 gold medals in his final Olympics.

SPORTS MEDIA

For the first time since 1988, the Olympics broadcast will not have Dick Ebersol at the helm, and that’s a good thing, as his insistence on tape-delaying live events had caused a steady decline of TV ratings on NBC, for both Summer and Winter Games.

NBC’s new owner Comcast will instead use the Olympics to increase viewership and visibility for its family of networks - especially the NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) - and Web properties by making nearly every event available live, either on TV or via live-streaming.

NBC, as well as Fox and CBS, are trying to maintain their influence in a sports media landscape increasingly dominated by ESPN, which raked in $8.5 billion in revenue in 2010 for parent company Disney. ESPN has been able to dramatically increase its cash flow by extracting ever more subscriber fees from cable and satellite operators to supplement its advertising revenue.

As a result, bidding wars for sports programming have caused rights fees to skyrocket. In just the last year, NBC paid $4.3 billion to the International Olympic Committee (for four Olympics through 2020); Fox, CBS and NBC paid $28 billion to the NFL while ESPN paid $15.2 billion for its own separate “Monday Night Football” deal (through 2022); ESPN also paid $500 million to the NCAA for non-football and non-basketball championships (through 2024); and CBS and NBC paid an undisclosed amount to the PGA Tour (through 2021).

All that cost of doing business will eventually be passed on to the average sports fan, even if he or she decides to forego paying escalating ticket prices and instead watches everything from home.

But the good news is that - other than, potentially, the NHL - there will be plenty to watch in 2012. And if we’re lucky, we won’t have to deal with learning a new household name, as we did in 2011 with Jerry Sandusky.

Most 'Valuable' Athlete in Beijing? Not Phelps

(From RealClearSports)

Who’s the most valuable athlete at the just-completed Beijing Olympics?

It’s not Michael Phelps. Not Usain Bolt. Not Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or any other member of the Redeem Team. Not Yang Wei, not Yao Ming, not anybody from Team China.

It’s female swimmer Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe – pound-for-pound (or dollar-for-dollar, euro-for-euro, if you will). And it’s not even close.

An NCAA champion who’s been swimming at Auburn University, Coventry nevertheless represents her home country, a poverty-stricken mess in the midst of hyperinflation. As recently as July, it cost $250 billion Zimbabwean dollars to buy a loaf of bread – until the government redenominated its worthless currency.

But Coventry brought at least some honor to her troubled nation. Her four medals, one gold and three silver, accounted for all of Zimbabwe’s medal haul in Beijing. In fact, of Zimbabwe’s eight Olympic medals, all-time, Coventry won seven of them.

Her medal production means that in Beijing, Zimbabwe would’ve produced nearly 181 medals per $10 million US in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Of course, Zimbabwe’s nearly nonexistent national economy helped make this happen. But it takes nothing away from Coventry’s achievement, even if she does train and live in the United States.

Coming in as a distant second is Jamaica, a poor Caribbean nation that has enthralled the world by becoming a sprinting powerhouse in recent Games. Besides Bolt’s three gold medals, Jamaica claimed three more gold, three silver and two bronze medals in Beijing. All of the island nation’s 11 medals came in sprint events between 100 and 400 meters.

Of the nations ranked with the best medals production vis-à-vis GDP, they generally fall into three groups: African nations (Zimbabwe, Kenya, Togo and Ethiopia), Caribbean nations (Jamaica, Cuba and Bahamas) and former Soviet Republics (Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova). Of these 16 nations, 11 currently or formerly practiced communism, including North Korea and Mongolia.

Two of these nations also are among the leading medal-winning nations in Beijing. And not so coincidentally, both are run by communist governments – Cuba and Belarus. And both are by far the poorest among nations that won at least 16 medals.

Cuba has always been an Olympic heavyweight, its 24 total medals placed it 12th among the 202 teams that took part in the Olympics. The Beijing Games, still, must be considered a failure by the Castro regime as Cuban athletes won just two gold medals – none in boxing, which Cuba historically dominated. And not even baseball as South Korea defeated Cuba in the gold medal game.

Half of the 16 top medal-producing nations are G-8 members. And most of the rest are western-(style) democracies - plus China, the host nation and the world’s third-largest economy.

Economic prowess obvious has a positive correlation with a country’s ability to produce Olympic medals. Most of these countries performed at similar rates in Beijing, at about 1-3 medals per $10 million US in GDP.

Among western nations, Australia stands out with its production of over 6 medals per $10 million US in GDP. Ever since hosting the Sydney Games in 2000, Australia has been among the top five medal winning nations, despite a small population base of 21 million (slightly less than the state of Texas).

The one country conspicuous by its absence among the winning nations is India, an emerging economy, that, with over $1 trillion US in GDP, ranks 12th in the world. Yet, until the Beijing Games, India has never won a single Olympics gold medal aside from men’s field hockey. And despite having participated in every Olympics since 1920, India has never won more than two medals at a single Games. Between 1980 and 1996, India did not win a single medal in three successive Summer Olympics.

When Abhinav Bindra won the gold in men’s 10-meter air rifle, India exploded in joy. With Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar (no relation) winning bronze medals in wrestling and boxing, respectively, India was positively glowing in its unprecedented Olympic achievement.

Just don’t tell the jubilant Indians that in terms of medals per GDP, India placed dead last among the 87 nations that won at least one medal in Beijing. At least India can take solace in not getting shut out, however.

Saudi Arabia, with $376 billion US in GDP, is the nation with the highest GDP (25th) not to win a single medal in Beijing. In the kingdom’s “storied” Olympic history, which covered nine Games, it has won just a silver and a bronze medal, both in Sydney 2000.

Of course, when you don’t even allow half of your population to compete in any sport, you’re not helping your chances. But that’s a story for another day.

London Has No Chance, But That's Just Fine

(From RealClearSports)

The London Games of 2012 will never live up to the Beijing Olympics.

For that we should all be thankful.

London might not have what Beijing had to offer – money, “volunteers” and a state-run machinery that left no details uncovered. And unless they open up Buckingham Palace for the dressage, London’s venues will seem like a pauper’s sandlots compared to the architecturally stunning Beijing creations.

But London has something in spades that Beijing offered little, if any at all.

Freedom.

You won’t need to get a permit to unfurl a protest banner. If you want to shout “Free Falklands” at the top your lungs around Trafalgar Square - go ahead. The bobbies won’t descend on you and drag your malcontent butt to the Channel Islands for “re-education.”

If you want tickets, you may buy them. If you care to surf the web and read about Amnesty International, have at it. If you decide to stroll through some of London’s rougher neighborhoods, nobody is going to stop you by putting up giant boards to hide them from view.

But if you expect everything to run smoothly, choreographed to perfection, then you won’t get it. There might be heavy traffic and lousy weather. A shuttle bus might be running late because of a flat tire. A not-so-cute little girl might even be seen during the opening ceremonies.

The thing about free people is that they’re allowed to screw up.

I’ll take the slightly disheveled Boris Johnson any day over any perfectly coiffed Chinese bureaucrat. During the closing ceremonies, the mayor of London stuck his hands in his pockets in a perfect moment of clarity – nobody told him what to do so he had to look around and figure it out on his own.

That a royal bastard child, the great grandson of a Turk and a bombastic former newspaperman could assume the leadership of one of the world’s greatest cities speaks well of Londoners. They voted him into office and then they railed against him when he banned alcohol consumption on the Underground. And if he ticks them off too much, he’ll be ex-mayor at the London Games.

Free people are like that. They can change their minds and get rid of their leaders.

Whatever happens in London, at least you can believe it to be real. It could be a carefree Olympics like the ones in Barcelona and Sydney, or it could be an Atlanta-esque semi-disaster. There will be plenty of planning, but it won’t cover every conceivable contingency.

But that’s OK. It’s more fun to be at a party where the lawn chair ends up in the pool than the one that you’re only allowed to look at, but not touch anything.

Goodbye, Beijing. Hello, London.

Let freedom reign.

Olympics' Home Gold Advantage

(From RealClearSports)

For the first time in 12 years, the United States will not be on top of the Summer Games medals table. With one week left in the Beijing Olympics, China is poised to replace the U.S. as the country with the most gold medals. (Counting gold, by the way, is a worldwide standard.)

While China's emergence as a global sports power should be a surprise to no one, it's clear that the Chinese benefitted from hosting this year's Games. Through Sunday, China has hauled in more golds (35) than it did in the entire Olympics in Athens (32). Playing at glittering new venues and cheered on by a helpful home crowd, Chinese athletes are projected to win as many as 45 gold medals and 85 overall.

But China hardly would be the first Summer Olympic host to take advantage of home cookin'. Since 1988, every host nation has seen an increase in gold medal count, and all but one - the United States, ironically - has reeled in more medals as host than in the previous Games. (See Chart)

We use the 1988 Seoul Games as demarcation for this study for two reasons. The first is fairly obvious: The previous two Olympics - Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 - were boycotted by large blocs of influential countries and therefore the medal counts were grossly skewed.

The second reason is that the 1984 Games marked the Olympics' departure from only the purely traditional and classic sports to the inclusion of the truly unconventional and downright bizarre ones. And the number of available medals naturally skyrocketed. In L.A., synchronized swimming gained a place as a medal sport. Since then, beach volleyball, trampoline, rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized diving all found their way up the podium.

From the first postwar Games (London 1948) to L.A., the number of sports held steady between 19 and 22. After L.A., it has mushroomed to 31 until the IOC finally put a cap after the 2004 Games in Athens. Total available medals has gone from 411 in London to 688 in L.A. (plus-277 in 36 years) to 922 in Beijing. (plus-234 in 16 years).

The proliferation of (marginal) sports in the Olympics had a direct impact in helping the home team. It allowed the host nations to target their resources in more sports to mine medals. China instituted Project 119 in 2001, shortly after winning the bid to host the Games, expressly focusing on areas where the United States might be weaker - and that strategy appears to be paying off.

Of the five post-L.A. hosts prior to Beijing, Spain enjoyed the biggest sporting renaissance in a four-year period. The Spaniards hauled in 13 golds and 22 overall in Barcelona, good for sixth place, after winning just one gold and four total in Seoul 1988. Australia also catapulted from a second-tier sports power to a global juggernaut, adding seven golds and 17 total medals as host in Sydney 2000.

On average, the host nations improved their presence in the standings by 5.3 places with an additional 6.8 gold medals and 9 overall. By percentage, that's a whopping 60 percent improvement in golds and 24 percent overall. 

Economic assistance is the primary reason for medal improvement. The host nation, already committing millions (later, billions) into building Olympic infrastructure, spent some of that investment on its athletes. Sometimes lavishly. Improved facilities often led to better training and coaching and therefore better performance on the field.

Another factor is that home teams always benefitted from questionable officiating in events where judges decided the outcomes. The most infamous example would be Roy Jones' "loss" in the 1988 Games to South Korean Park Si-Hun in the light middleweight gold medal bout. Of course there are others, including this year's women's gymnastics controversy, in which China's blatant use of underage performers were generously overlooked - an unlikely event had the Games been held outside of China.

Finally, the development of sporting culture in host countries proved to be vital - and also lasting - in helping these nations to win medals now and later. The initial investment in Olympic athletes often resulted in sprouting interest in sports in the general population. It's revealing that, except Greece, each of the recent host nations has maintained its global sports standings even after the Games have long departed its turf.

Including China, four of the six leading nations in Beijing are recent hosts (1. China, 2. USA, 5. Australia, 6. South Korea). Spain is ranked 13th, but arguably it's having a better sporting year than anyone else on the planet, with victories in the soccer European Championship and Tour de France, and Rafael Nadal's double triumph at the French Open and Wimbledon and ascendency to world. No. 1.

It's a certainty, with this backdrop, that China will remain a sporting power long after Beijing. Great Britain, currently ranking No. 3 and having its best Olympics since 1920, is next in line as the host of the 2012 Games in London. The top of the medals table is getting crowded with lots of newly minted Olympic powers, all emerging after serving as the host in the last 20 years.

Threatened by all these new competitors, the United States has but one thing to do to reclaim the five-ring global supremacy:

Get the 2016 Games to Chicago.

Only As Good As Gold

(From RealClearSports)

Do you know that the Buffalo Bills were the most successful NFL franchise in the 1990s? Or that Jan Ullrich tied Lance Armstrong as the greatest riders in the history of the Tour de France?

Senseless? Hey, it's the same logic that U.S. media outlets follow when it comes to the Olympics medal tables - including this one.

The world over, the medal tables are arranged according to the most number of gold medals accumulated - check out BBC, l'Equipe, Der Spiegel, The Australian, Globe and Mail, Japan Times, South China Morning Post ... I could go on and on.

Not to mention the IOC, the governing body of the Olympic Games.

But here in the USA, without exception, medal tables are ranked according to total number of medals won by each country. A few publications let you sort it however you want, but the default mode is always total number of medals.

In a country imbued with much sports culture and heritage, we should know better than that. When it comes to sporting events, it's victory uber alles. Silver medals are for losers. Just ask Jim Kelly how he feels about finishing second four times.

This disparity of how medal tables are arranged will become a big topic as the Beijing Olympics move into the second week. It's likely that for only the fourth time - and the first since the Tokyo Games in 1964 - that the country with the most medals won't be the one with the most golds.

While U.S. publications continue to tout America's "lead" in the standings, the rest of the world sees China as the front-runner. The Chinese have a commanding advantage in gold medals - 35 to the U.S.'s 19 as of Sunday - even though the U.S. is clinging onto a slim overall medals lead. Without a particularly strong track and field contingent, it's unlikely that the U.S. would catch China for the most golds.

With that, America's 12-year-run as the Olympic hegemon will be over. China may not end up with the most medals, but it will have the most of what matters.

And it won't even be all that close.


Olympics with Different Leaders in Gold and Overall Medals

1896 - 1. USA (11 gold, 20 total), 2. Greece (10, 46)
1912 - 1. USA (25, 63), 2. Sweden (24, 65)
1964 - 1. USA (36, 90), 2. Soviet Union (30, 96)
2008* - 1. China (35, 61), 2. USA (19, 65)

* Through Sunday, Aug. 17

Phelps Wins by a Jiffy

(From RealClearSports)

To the naked eye, it's hard to tell whether Michael Phelps really beat Milorad (Mike) Cavic to the wall.

Well, that depends on how naked you want to get.

Sports Illustrated has come up with this series of photos that seems to dispel any notions of conspiracy and device malfunction. It really does look like Phelps beat Cavic by the closest of margins.



By 1/100th of a second.

That's one centisecond, a bit longer than a flash. Technically, it's called a jiffy.

Yes, Michael Phelps won by a jiffy.

Learning the Right Lessons from 1936

(From RealClearWorld)

Jesse Owens was the star of the Berlin Games in 1936. True.

Adolf Hitler used the Olympics as a propaganda opportunity to sell Nazi Germany. Also true.

Owens’ runaway success debunked Hitler’s Aryan superiority theme, rendered the Berlin Olympics a colossal failure and brought personal humiliation to the Fuhrer himself.

False, false, false. A thousand times false.

History has a funny way of repeating itself. What’s not funny is this kind of revisionist history -- wrong and sending the wrong message.

It’s become de rigueur to draw comparisons between the Games in Berlin and this year’s Beijing Olympics. It’s easy to see the parallels: Totalitarian regimes. Human rights abuses. State-sponsored planning and “cleansing.” And a bubbling nationalism that’s difficult to miss.

But in order for those comparisons to make sense it’s paramount to understand what actually had happened in 1936 and what long-term consequences came of the Berlin Olympics. Thinking that they were a setback for the Nazis would be the wrong place to start.

The 1936 Games were a spectacular success for the Nazis, one that made Hitler’s future genocidal pogroms and aggressive wars possible. Germany was the undisputed winner on the competition fields and in the arena of public opinion.

To assuage the fears of foreign visitors, “Jews not welcome” signs were quietly removed from all over Berlin. The omnipresent Gestapo were made conspicuous by their absence. Even Julius Streicher’s notoriously anti-Semitic Der Sturmer disappeared from the newsstands. Athletes, media and tourists were treated to lavish receptions.

For those visiting Nazi Germany for the first time, they saw a first-rate world power with magnificent infrastructure, clean streets, friendly people and a benevolent government.

For Owens, in particular, it was an unforgettable experience – and a positive one. He was adored by the German public, with crowds chanting his name when he entered the stadium and mobbing him on the street for autographs. And unlike in his segregated homeland, he was free to use whichever public facilities he pleased.

Much has been made of the “Hitler Snub,” a reference to the German leader’s refusal to shake his hand after victories. That was utter nonsense, too. Warned by the IOC to be impartial to competitors, Hitler greeted no one after the first day of the Games. (Who knew Avery Brundage had that much pull?) Owens himself said that Hitler did in fact stand up and acknowledge him during competition. It was Franklin Roosevelt who declined to take his hand upon his triumphant return to America.

The Nazi Games owed part of their success to Olympia, superbly cinematographed by Leni Riefenstahl. The Olympic torch relay, now considered an ancient ritual, was in fact a Riefenstahl invention for the film. For the Berlin Games, the torch run was the first of many glorious moments.

The torch relay for the Beijing Games, in contrast, was marred by international protests of the Chinese regime’s behavior in Darfur, Tibet and in China itself. On that point alone, it’s clear that the Beijing Games will bear little resemblance to its 1936 predecessor.

The Nazis were simply and vastly better at sinister manipulation.

The Beijing Games, three days old, would already have to be considered a mild PR disaster. Showing few abilities to grasp the subtleties the Chinese are purportedly famous for, the communist regime has failed several important tests.

The torch relay was the first opportunity. It would have been better to allow the protesters to run amok instead of strong-arming them with track-suited secret police – on foreign soil. Then came the reneging on a pledge to allow the visiting media unfettered internet access, for which the Chinese government earned universal scorn before somewhat relenting.

With tantrums resembling a neighborhood gangster instead of a global power, the regime caught few breaks from the international press descending on Beijing. Everything it does is viewed with cynicism. Every decision it makes is scrutinized, mostly unfavorably.

For all that, we should all breath a sigh of relief. The Chinese authorities just aren’t as shrewd and devious as Hitler. The Nazis were willing to do anything and everything – even demurring to the toothless IOC – to advance their ultimate agenda. The communist authorities simply can’t help but be their bullying selves.

So for history lessons, there's limited value in comparing these Games 72 years apart - except hopefully this: Olympics do not lead to happy endings for totalitarian regimes.

Nine years after the Berlin Games, Hitler’s Germany lay in rubble and swastikas were wiped off the face of Europe. Nine years after the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire soon dissolved. Nine years after the 1984 Games in Sarajevo, Tito’s Yugoslavia was no more.

Can’t wait to see what will happen in 2017.

Land of the Delay, Home of the Tape

(From RealClearSports)

It's a staggering fact that of the nearly 200 nations participating in the Beijing Olympics, the United States might be the only one where live coverage of the Opening Ceremony is unavailable.

Why? Thanks to NBC, which continues its criminal practice of "saving" the best of the Games for prime time -- a tactic that began in 1992 when the network first secured Olympics TV rights and continued to near-perfection to this day.

Basically, Dick Ebersol and his minions don't want you to think of the Olympics as a sporting event. They want you to view it as though it's theater. We all know what happens at the end of Hamlet but we'd still see it, right?

The problem is, sporting events can't be scripted (with apologies to the NBA). Neither can news events. And the Olympics are both.

Let's say a bomb goes off in the middle of the Opening Ceremonies. It would instantly reverberate around the globe. Footage of the carnage will be immediately beamed all over the world -- except in the United States.

Because NBC holds the exclusive U.S. broadcast rights, nothing from the Games' venues may be viewed anywhere in America except for on its broadcast partners and its own web site. So while you might get a peek of a still photo here and a news story there, you'd have to tune in, 12 hours later, to see what actually had taken place.

"A Bomb Blows Up the Entire Stage in Beijing's Olympic Stadium! Watch it on NBC Tonight at 8!"

The tape-delay practice, done away with from mainstream American sports in the early 1980s, came back with a vengeance during the 1996 Games in Atlanta, where Ebersol foisted the absurd "Plausibly Live" concept upon the unsuspecting public. Main events were shown on a delayed basis but masqueraded as live.

They became blatantly taped in the subsequent five Olympics, four staged away from U.S. soil. But with the advent of internet age, when free flow of information became readily available, NBC's ratings took a nosedive as potential viewers shunned television coverage when they already knew the results.

Even Ebersol acknowledged this fact and pledged to show more events live from Beijing this year. One way to accomplish that is to strong-arm the IOC to allow certain marquee events to be staged at 8 in the morning in China (prime time in America). Always aiming to please, of course the IOC obliged.

Michael Phelps, perhaps the headline athlete of these Games with his quest for an unprecedented eight gold medals, will have all of his finals broadcast live. NBC made sure of that.

Here's hoping Michael likes the morning swim.

Surprise! The IOC Capitulates to China

(From Sinotaneous)

Yesterday, "negotiations" went on between the IOC and Chinese authorities regarding unrestricted internet access for the media covering the Olympics. Today, we know how it all went down.

Just call it an unconditional surrender.

The bullying Chinese government has won the day and once again proved that rules are for suckers and promises are meant for babes. Despite all its previous assurances guaranteeing press freedom, China had no intention of keeping its word at all.

According to the International Herald Tribune:

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC's Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide free Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.

"For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet," Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago.

Rogge and the IOC simply capitulated. Unable to persuade the Chinese Communist regime to stick to its pledge, the IOC just shuffled off and threw up its hands. Unwilling to take a stand at the risk of damaging his brand, Rogge preferred to eat his own word.

With one week to go before the Games, the totalitarian regime has gradually revealed its ferocious fangs. It has proven that it intends to carry out its will with impunity. And so far, no one has dared to challenge it. The IOC could've threatened to pull the Olympics out of Beijing altogether. But taking a page out of Marshal Petain's book: Why fight when it's so much easier just to surrender?

There is but one person with enough clout to at least make Beijing squirm: George W. Bush. Previously I had counseled in favor of Bush attending the Opening Ceremony to provide China some cover for relaxing its death grip on all matters relating to freedom. But in the face of renewed and heightened Chinese intransigence, it's clearly time for Bush to reconsider.

Somebody should resort to the stick after all the carrots are devoured, right?

Olympic Press Freedom Still Being Fought

(From Sinotaneous)

Is Leni Riefenstahl somewhere in the building?

Only fools -- i.e. the International Olympic Committee -- bought into China's promises guaranteeing press freedom during the Beijing Games. There was no reason to ever believe that the Chinese government intended to keep its word once it has the hosting rights secured.

Even as of today, about one week before the Games were to commence, internet access to some of the most basic sites such as Wikipedia is still restricted. While the "Great Firewall" might be removed temporarily around the press center and hotels housing the western media, do not expect such measures to be expanded or long-lasting.

As for the event itself, you will not see any highlights that involve anything political, according to the Sydney Morning Herald:

The other problem foreign media will have is that Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co Ltd (BOB) is responsible on behalf of the Beijing organising committee for releasing footage of all aspects of the Games, except protests.

Depending on their budgets, Olympic rights holders can put their own cameras into venues but most of the world’s media will rely on the footage BOB provides. Asked this year whether BOB would film and immediately release footage of disputes or protests, a senior executive told the Herald that “Beijing Olympic Broadcasting will do its best to avoid it”. “Why would we [film and release protests]?” the executive said. “We are not a news organisation. We’re there to film the event.”

While it's unclear whether China plans on making a sequel to "Olympia," this much we know: At least the foreign press will have some access and freedom. If you're a Chinese citizen watching this glorious event on your TV at home, you're not going to see anything the state doesn't want you to.

From the Chinese-language, Hong Kong-based Ming Pao:

Chinese authorities have ordered a 10-second broadcast delay to avoid “undesirable” incidents - such as protests or anti-Chinese slogans - being seen by the domestic masses.

The Chinese have learned well. They've now taken NBC's "plausibly live" to a whole new level.

Clean Air Requires More Than Olympic Effort

(From Sinotaneous)

Chinese authorities have busied themselves the last couple of weeks in a last-ditch effort to clean up Beijing's foul air. Factories are shut down temporarily. Cars are taken off the roads. Even smoking is now banned in many places.



The result is somewhat improved air quality. But to be fair, Beijing, usually under the overhang of a gray sky, is geographically challenged. Ringed by mountains on three sides and surrounded by industrial plants in nearby cities and provinces, polluted air tends to drift toward Beijing and make itself home.

All that central planning might buy Beijing enough tolerable breathing space to get through the Olympics. But if the Chinese government is actually serious about improving Beijing's nasty air -- instead of just putting on a show -- a more sustained effort is required.

It can be done, though.

Taipei, the city where I was born and raised in and lived until my teenage years, has some of the same geographical handicaps that trouble Beijing. A land-locked basin with hills on all sides, Taipei was an air-pollution death trap. Indeed, my childhood memories were filled with gray skies and lung-busting bad air.

But things have changed quite dramatically over the past decade or so. Much to my amazement, Taipei is now one of the greenest cities in Asia. On a recent trip to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, about the only place that didn't cause me to suffer an episodic coughing spell was Taipei.

And just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, it's comforting to know other people were thinking of the same thing.

Beijing can learn much from Taipei's transformation. And in some ways, it's taking the same steps. The mass-transit projects, many of them completed recently, will help. Newly imposed environmental requirements for factories should have an impact, too.

But more important, this has to be more than just a quick-fix. Maybe Beijing's citizens will like what they're breathing now and do their part to mitigate air pollution. The government, meanwhile, has to decide whether it was making an investment in the future or merely paying hush money to get through the day.

I guess we'll find out in the next decade or so.

Chinese Ambition? There's More to It

(From Sinotaneous)

China and Russia settled a territorial dispute Monday when Russia agreed to return Yinlong Island (known as Tarabarov Island in Russian) and half of Heixiazi Island (Bolshoi Ussuriysky) to China. The 67 square miles of territory are on the northeast border with China.



No doubt some would read this as China flexing its growing international muscle. After all, who'd thought Putin and Medvedev's Russia would voluntarily cede its territories, no matter how small.

Besides, the sprouting Chinese presence in the Russian Far East, particularly in Vladivostock, has been viewed with ill ease by ordinary Russians. They're not comforted by the fact that many Chinese continue to refer to the port city by its Mandarin name Haishenwai (海参崴), even though the erstwhile Manchu fishing village has not been under Chinese sovereignty since 1860.

For over a century, Chinese school children were taught that Vladivostock, and a good chunk of the Russian Far East, were given to Czarist Russia in the unequal treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). Near the nadir of its existence, a weak Qing Dynasty, fearful of the superior guns and boats of the west, surrendered acres of its ancestral lands without a shot being fired.

As China grew in strength over the last quarter century, the Chinese sought to right some historical wrongs. Flush with cash, China also had the option of settling border disputes without the use of force. The framework of the agreement was first negotiated in 1991 and continued through 2004. On the surface, the Chinese seemed to be getting the better of the Russians.

While the Chinese were busy earning the all-important "face" for the benefit of an increasingly nationalistic populace, Russia got what it wanted, too. For the price of a few small islands on and around the Amur River, Russia got China -- at least the PRC -- to renounce all future claims in the Russian Far East.

But the real worrisome fact from this China-Russia peace fest was just that. Once bitter rivals who fought several border skirmishes along a frozen river, China and Russia, each with its own anti-West ambitions, are closer than ever. Joined by a common desire to check American hegemony, the former communist rivals are putting their differences aside.

Any wonder why these guys are getting along famously at U.N. Security Council meetings?

A Test of Heavenly Proportions

(From Sinotaenous)

In the most vulnerable hour, China has looked its most sympathetic.

If the Chinese communist government failed miserably in its first test of the year, during the Tibet uprising and subsequent worldwide torch relay, then it's getting at least a passing grade in its handling of the Sichuan earthquake tragedy. In some quarters, it's getting rave reviews.

The adroit and deft management of such a humanitarian disaster has earned the Chinese government some breathing room. But it should not be surprising. If anything, Hu Jintao has shown during his tenure that he's a quick study and much more in tune with the fast-changing nature of global public relations.

For starters, the quake came on the heels of Burma's devastating cyclone, during which its military junta deservedly earned universal scorn. So whatever Beijing did was probably going to be viewed more favorably. But Hu was even smarter than that.

Understanding that the flow of information would be difficult to stop in such a chaotic environment, he instead allowed it to transmit relatively freely. The world got a rare unfiltered glimpse of sorrow and grief of a nation and its people and understandably lavished them with ample amounts of sympathy. And China's surprising decision to swiftly allow foreign aid groups to reach the disaster area gave credence to the notion that its government took responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.

Rescue teams from Japan, South Korea and even Taiwan gained nearly immediate access to the disaster zone. Untold number of lives were perhaps saved because of this action. Contrast that with how Russia handled the sinking of the submarine Kursk in 2000, when Vladimir Putin let his sailors die on the sea floor instead of swallowing national pride to allow foreign help. In this case, China lost face hardly at all. Instead, it's widely viewed as a shining example of a growing global village that thrives on mutual assistance.

The cynical among us might question the true motives of the Chinese government, but no one can question that the event was unplanned and the swift response was un-rehearsed. The Chinese view momentous events, like a massive earthquake, as heavenly intervention. In this context, the communist government shook to its core, but came out with the right answers.

Hu and his inner circle know that the groundswell of sympathy and support will not last forever, so they best take advantage of this goodwill and use it as a foundation to build more trust. There are indications that they will. Hu's conciliatory gesture toward Taiwan, including the unearthing of the rarely invoked "1992 Consensus" was well received. His willingness to at least engage Dalai Lama's representatives -- whether it's somewhat coerced or not -- has helped to cool the Free Tibet fever.

So just where is China headed from here? That's becoming more interesting and complex by the day. If anything, the earthquake may have ended the days when China sealed all outside contact at the first sign of internal distress. And with that as the new reality, China might be on the verge of yet another transformation.

For the better, we hope. Perhaps it's a mandate from Heaven?

Free Tibet? Enough Already!

(From Sinotaneous)

Whenever I see a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker on the back of a car, I just want to gag. Actually, I want to pull the driver out of her car and demand that she find Tibet on a world map. Five bucks say she can't. Five more bucks say she can't name one Tibetan city besides Lhasa.

So what is this all about? Free Tibet is a favorite left-liberal cause. Hollywood types love to triangulate between Cuba, Tibet and Palestine. Pretty senseless, really. One is one of the planet's last totalitarian communist regimes, one is under the armed occupation of another communist regime, and one freely elects a terrorist organization to govern.

But without a doubt, Tibet is a cause celebre of the activist types. For the life of me, I can't quite figure this one out. If you're truly interested in liberating people from an oppressive regime, why not look at the billion Han Chinese first?

Unbeknownst to most of the Free Tibet rabble rousers, Communist China has traditionally treated Tibet with kid gloves (comparatively speaking, of course). Since the invasion of Tibet in 1950, there may have been hundreds killed and hundreds jailed in over a half century on the Roof of the World. Communists frequently murder and incarcerate that many in China proper, in a single day.

The Beijing Olympics, with the world-wide torch relay, have become a convenient target for the Free Tibet movement, even before the riot/protest in mid-March. After the crackdown, Tibet will be a hot topic throughout the Olympics, foreshadowed by a potential boycott of the Games.

A boycott of any sort will serve only to enrage the Chinese -- more than just the communist rulers, but the ordinary Chinese within and outside of China. A groundswell of anger over Tibet will not only fail to improve the situation in Tibet, but embolden the Chinese government to treat the dissident Tibetans harshly. Indeed, it's been rightly speculated that the Beijing regime is under far greater domestic pressure in its dealings with Tibet.

That's why it would be foolish for President Bush to snub the Chinese at the Olympics. The Beijing regime needs an excuse to lighten up on Tibet and Bush's presence will provide that cover. Of course, while he's there, he'd need to do more -- for example, standing up for the dissidents, jailed journalists and a cornucopia of political prisoners.

But this is where the carrot should carry the day, not the stick. No matter how boisterous and in-your-face the Free Tibet crowd gets around the world, their protests will be pointless except to potentially strengthen the Chinese government. By boycotting the Olympics over Tibet (or even more senselessly, Darfur), the Free Tibet circus may only unwittingly entrench the position of the communists among the Chinese citizens.

The point, which obviously escapes the frenzied leftist Tibet-mongers, is that in order to truly help the Tibetans, they need to help the Chinese do away with their government first. Without a Free China, there will never be a Free Tibet.

Olympic Boycott? Only a Matter of Size

(From Sinotaneous)

You can almost hear the muttering and moaning inside the Zhongnanhai compound. The Chinese Communist leadership knows its dream Olympic showcase is slowly turning into an unfathomable nightmare.

The fuse was lit by a small and somewhat organized riot/protest in Lhasa in mid-March. After some killing and shooting, it's become a worldwide spectacle. First, London. Then, Paris. Tomorrow, San Francisco. Unless China and the IOC decide that they've had enough and send the torch straight to Hong Kong and never wander outside of the Bamboo Curtain again.

But this had to happen. Even if it's for all the wrong reasons. Yes, China's oppression in Tibet is deplorable. Yes, China's continued enabling of the Sudanese regime is regrettable. But at the end of the day, China's most egregious violations of human rights occur everyday in China proper. If anything, the protests really should be about the billion-plus Chinese who are not free.

China has chucked all of its promises -- the promises that won it the Games in 2001 -- into the vast cesspool of the Three Gorges Dam. Press freedom? What are you talking about? One more word out of you it'd be jail time, or deportation if you're fortunate enough to have a non-PRC passport. Respect for human rights? Sure, but if you don't toe the company line then we'll try -- and certainly convict -- you for treason and subversion.

For all their meticulous scheming, the Chinese Communists never made much contingency for this kind of spontaneous, globe-trotting combustion, timed precisely to ruin their best-laid plans. All the activists out there, whether their cause is Tibet or Darfur, have been licking their chops at this opportunity to make China squirm. All the better for them, they're getting maximum press coverage while exercising their freedom of speech in the friendly confines of western cities.

Short of shutting down the torch relay now, there is no way that the Chinese government can contain a worldwide opposition to its hosting of the Olympics at this point in time. There will be more trouble ahead in New Delhi and Canberra, and maybe other points in between.

And disruption of the torch relay now serves merely as a prelude. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has suggested snubbing the Opening Ceremonies. Attendance by President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also has become a hot topic of discussion. With it, a number of western nations will have to seriously consider boycotting the Games all together.

The Chinese Communist leaders are in full damage-control mode. Is it possible for them to stifle all dissent within China, including Tibet, until August and allow all this furor to die down? It's possible. But in this internet age, even a totalitarian regime cannot be certain of controlling all information to its liking. Should there be more bloodshed or more show trials, the rest of the world will find out about them soon enough. And when it does, China will pay the price.

The train has left the station. The 2008 Beijing Olympics promise to be the most politically charged Games since the semi-aborted affair in 1980. The question is: Will they be befallen by the same fate that doomed the Moscow Games?

Yes. A boycott is all but a certainty, only the size of the boycott is in question.

An Olympic Opportunity

(From Sinotaneous)

Even last week, I thought about urging President Bush not to attend the Beijing Olympics. My logic was simple: Did FDR show up in Berlin as Der Fuhrer's guest of honor? Was Jimmy Carter ever going to grace Moscow with his presence even if he hadn't ordered its boycott? Why would Bush want to have anything to do with a regime that has so much blood of innocents on its hands?

But after viewing the events in Tibet the last couple of weeks, I changed my mind. At the crossroads of history, the best thing for America to do, vis-a-vis China, is to engage her, instead of further enraging her.

I'm hardly the appeasement type. Usually, I advocate fighting to the death. But here is a strategic opportunity for real reform to take place in China. This kind of opportunity doesn't come often, and it must not be missed.

To be sure, the Beijing regime is treating the Summer Games as China's coming out party. Totalitarian outfits love using the Olympics as a showcase. Berlin 1936, with Leni Riefenstahl working the cameras, will never be topped as the finest hour for the art of propaganda. Though Moscow 1980 and Sarajevo 1984 tried in vain.

The leadership in Zhongnanhai has dusted off Hitler and Goebbels' playbook and choreographed accordingly. Beijing was to be transformed from the massively polluted and congested grime into the beacon for Chinese-style socialism. And the rest of China, as far as anywhere the visitors can see, was to be made into a 21st century workers' paradise, with a capitalist twist.

There's just one problem on borrowing the Nazi script -- this ain't 1936. News get out, fast, and therefore you just can't control everything, especially information.

Try as it might, the Beijing government is hardly omnipotent even within its own borders, thanks to rapid global communication. The skirmishes in Lhasa, no matter whose side you believe, proves this point. And trust me, that's only the beginning. Between now and the opening ceremonies in August, there will be more bloodshed.

The communists are in a pickle here. Every group with a grievance will use this opportunity to be seen or heard. And there are plenty of them in China. If the regime employs a high-handed crackdown, it risks a possible international boycott and a massive loss of face. If it goes for a half-hearted slapdown, as it apparently did in Tibet, then it will only encourage more dissonance.

For this reason, it actually makes sense to fully engage China. President Bush no doubt will be keeping constant communication with China's Hu Jintao during the period leading up to the event. There's plenty to talk about: Human rights, Tibet, North Korea and of course, Taiwan. Luckily for Hu, thanks to Taiwan's voters, his most thorny problem is at the moment the least of his concerns.

Bush needs to constantly remind Hu the commitments that China has made in order to win the bid for the Olympics. Sure, those commies are not really into keeping their word, but under a harsh international spotlight, they'd at least make a show of it. Liberty must always be topic No. 1, even if it annoys the hell out of Hu.

As good faith, Bush should fulfill his pledged appearance at the Games -- even if Sarkozy and other European leaders bail at the last minute. The presence of a sitting American president will be an enormous boost to the Chinese leadership. But instead of allowing Hu and Co. to use this as a propaganda tool, Bush instead should be there as part enforcer, part shrink, counseling temperance over reprisal when and if more stuff hits the fan during the Games.

Will his mere presence help usher in an era of political reform in China? That's doubtful. But by being there, Bush will do more good than harm. China's government has invested so much in staging the Olympics, it's not willing to let it fall to pieces by being trigger happy, especially with the leader of the world's only uber-power on site as a distinguished guest.

That's why this is one heck of an opportunity. By being in Beijing, Bush isn't sticking up for the communist leadership, he will be serving the cause of liberty -- for the billions of Chinese, for whom it's long overdue.