Nick Cohen from The Observer ( a British newspaper) reminds us that China is still a communist regime, and thus Beijing’s claims of a “green” Olympics needs to be viewed through the prism of authoritarian propaganda honed to a fine skill through years of practice…he also notes that Beijing has found some useful idiots from the West to help prop up the illusion:
The Communist party of China has beautified Beijing for the Olympics. The Organising Committee for the games has ordered one million cars from the road and told factories to shut down, so foreigners will believe that one of the most polluted cities on earth can hold ‘the green Olympics’.
The president of the Olympic Committee gabbled his appreciation. Jacques Rogge, a sports’ bureaucrat who appears to have learnt nothing from the 20th century, lauded China’s ‘extraordinary’ efforts. The statistics proved the authorities had done everything that ‘was humanely possible’, and the statistics never lie.
Greenpeace, so harsh on democratic countries, was as excessive in its praise. After registering a few reservations, it declared the dictatorship’s work was ‘tremendous’ and ‘positively unique’. Beijing was providing ‘important lessons to other Chinese cities’.
The eyebrows of Jonathan Fenby, who has just published The Penguin History of Modern China, shot up at that. When the games are over, the factories will reopen, he said. The Olympics will have secured a few long-term benefits - more homes and workplaces will burn gas rather than coal - but when set against China’s vast pollution problem these gains will be tiny.
Cohen then reminds us why it is such useful idiots are so easy to come by (and always have been for communist regimes):
The gullible admire dictatorships because they think the great leader and his politburo can cut through objections and force the recalcitrant to obey orders, and we have had no shortage of fantasies about the better China that would come if only the party embraced greenery.
In The River Runs Black, a book every environmentalist needs to read, Elizabeth C Economy points out that the fantasies can never be realised. Even if the centre wanted to change policy, its writ does not run in the provinces. Local officials are in the pocket of or related to factory owners and ignore inconvenient decrees. If the courts, the press or doctors in local hospitals complain, they silence them. Change is impossible without democratic reform - which is as far away as ever.
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