Por que a equipe de tênis de mesa dos Estados Unidos foi enviada para a China comunista, mesmo depois de uma diferença de ideologia?

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Os EUA tinham um embargo em vigor com a China, por terem lutado contra os chineses na Coréia durante a guerra da Coréia. Por 20 anos, nenhum americano colocou os pés em território da RPC. Por fim, a equipe americana de tênis de mesa foi enviada para a China. Como isso foi possível? Isso foi uma iniciativa privada ou parte da política externa dos EUA?

Em 1971 ou por aí, o presidente Richard Nixon decidiu por uma política de "normalização" das relações com a China. A chegada da equipe de pingue-pongue dos Estados Unidos foi o primeiro "apalpador" desse processo.

Isso foi seguido em 1972 pela visita histórica do presidente Nixon à China, encerrando a "Guerra Fria" entre os EUA e a China.

Verdadeiro ou falso: China é adequada para representar o anfitrião

Quatro anos atrás, ao entrar em Pequim pela primeira vez, os choupos ao longo da via expressa do aeroporto me pareceram um gesto falso e fútil. Esta era o que agora é a antiga via expressa do aeroporto, vindo do que agora é o antigo terminal internacional. Naquele momento, tudo era novo para mim e parecia razoável fazer algumas suposições sobre o que se passava do lado de fora da janela do táxi. As árvores, eu pude ver, eram insignificantes - esguias coisas verde-acinzentadas, plantadas em fileiras retas como réguas, quase desaparecendo à medida que recuavam na poluição acastanhada.

Então, aqui estava a Nova China: um ramo do hálito do bebê caiu em uma chaminé.

Eu fiz algumas dezenas de viagens ao longo da via expressa desde então, como um visitante recorrente e, eventualmente,

nos últimos dois anos, como residente em Pequim. Digo “residente” no sentido de que minha esposa e eu moramos aqui, alugamos um apartamento e compramos um sofá e que nosso filho nasceu na cidade - embora legalmente, como jornalista estrangeiro sem um bureau permanente certificado, dependo de uma série de vistos temporários. Quatro anos é muito tempo em Pequim, uma cidade que se reinventa e se reconstrói freneticamente. Os choupos se formaram em uma parede verde que não parece mais nem menos desonesta do que as faixas de bosque com que cresci na América, ocultando subdivisões e a interestadual umas das outras.

O ar ficou mais limpo também - não limpo, nem mesmo perto do que a maioria dos americanos chamaria de limpo, mas não a fumaça ininterrupta e sufocante de 2004. O tráfego de automóveis está cada vez mais denso e a poeira é endêmica, mas a realocação gradual de veículos pesados a indústria longe do centro da cidade tornou as coisas menos sufocantes. Quanto menos sufocante é um mistério contínuo, uma leitura crítica das estatísticas oficiais sugere fortemente que as autoridades têm mexido nos números da qualidade do ar para cumprir a cota anual cada vez maior de dias de “céu azul” prometida ao Comitê Olímpico Internacional. Mesmo assim, o céu está mais azul, e com mais frequência, do que há alguns anos. O governo abandonou a ficção de chamar a escuridão de “névoa” em vez de “neblina”, e podem se passar semanas entre os piores episódios. Às vezes, à noite, há estrelas.

Melhor ainda, chove: em uma cidade ressecada por anos de seca, agravada pela poluição que as sufoca, o mês de junho passado foi o mais chuvoso em 15 anos. É verdade que o Gabinete de Modificação do Clima municipal tem explodido as nuvens com projéteis de artilharia de iodeto de prata para ajudar na chuva, mas o crescimento exuberante das plantas é reconfortante de qualquer maneira.

As condições serão saudáveis o suficiente para os atletas? Agora estamos chegando à parte difícil. De perto, a resposta parece ser que o ar provavelmente não deveria estar tão ruim - se as restrições de tráfego conseguirem manter metade dos três milhões de carros particulares fora das ruas, se as fábricas limitarem a produção, se a escavação parar no prazo , se o vento soprar do norte em vez do sul e sudeste industrial.

Mas essa é apenas uma pequena parte da pergunta (ou problema) subjacente e animadora: a China está preparada para sediar os Jogos Olímpicos de Verão? Para alguns segmentos do Ocidente, isso pode ser respondido por um simples silogismo: as Olimpíadas são boas. A China é ruim. A China não deve sediar as Olimpíadas.

Como um saco de rolo expansível, essa conclusão pode ser aberta para conter qualquer ideologia que você gostaria de carregar nela: anticomunismo, democracia, independência tibetana, liberdade de imprensa, ambientalismo, direitos dos trabalhadores, abertura da Internet, Darfur. A China pode ser um lugar perturbador e provocador para se viver - um estado tão regulamentado que a polícia uniformizada bateu na porta e entrou para verificar os papéis da minha família - um sistema empresarial tão desmarcado que um hospital exigia dinheiro adiantado antes de uma cesariana de emergência. A dissidência externa é suprimida pelos censores e a dissidência interna é suprimida pelas prisões.

E, no entanto, há uma série de complicações na petição contemporânea contra a China: a tensão entre o governo central e autoridades locais despóticas, a expansão provisória dos direitos de propriedade, as novas relações cordiais com Taiwan, uma maior ênfase da liderança na redução dos danos ambientais. As tiranias e intrusões coexistem em um equilíbrio sempre mutável com progresso, possibilidade e esperança. Quão limpo é limpo o suficiente? Quão aberto é aberto o suficiente? Quão livre é livre o suficiente?

A China nem sempre facilita falar sobre nuances. Apesar de todas as suas promessas de cooperação e acesso à imprensa estrangeira, a burocracia está em grande parte presa a seus hábitos de suspeita e falta de cooperação com os jornalistas estrangeiros - e de hostilidade com os chineses não aprovados. Quanto mais os Jogos se aproximam, mais o aparato de segurança pública mostra que não vai comprometer a manutenção de um controle estrito: instituindo novos postos de controle, adicionando requisitos onerosos de visto, cancelando eventos e performances como quiser.

Antes de colocarmos a China em julgamento, porém, devemos fazer uma pergunta sobre a outra parte do argumento: quão boas são as Olimpíadas, de novo, exatamente? Na preparação para os Jogos, os críticos da China compararam repetidamente Pequim em 2008 a Berlim em 1936. E quem quer ser pró-nazista? Os eruditos ficaram satisfeitos em notar, conforme a passagem da tocha em direção a Pequim estava sendo interrompida por protestos nesta primavera, que o funcionamento da chama era um ritual inventado para os Jogos de Hitler. Mas também o é a renovação urbana olímpica monumental e todo o vocabulário da cinematografia olímpica heróica. Insinuar que os Jogos de Pequim são exclusivamente semelhantes a Berlim significa ignorar deliberadamente décadas de história. Os idealistas olímpicos tendem a confundir a trégua olímpica - a anulação temporária das hostilidades internacionais - com o antigo fim da história, aquele reino pacífico alcançado após a evolução gradual do mundo em direção a uma democracia liberal decente. Vamos estipular aqui que os Jogos Olímpicos são emocionantes e edificantes, que, na melhor das hipóteses, eles alcançam a difícil façanha de fornecer uma válvula de escape para o orgulho nacional e, ao mesmo tempo, promover a harmonia internacional. Os Jogos Olímpicos também são, de forma registrada, um espetáculo fascista, sustentado pelo corporativismo global. Por mais de duas décadas, no século 21, o I.O.C. foi presidido pelo ex-secretário de Esportes da ditadura de Franco. O mesmo conjunto de regras que impedirá os participantes de agitar a bandeira tibetana neste verão também impedirá qualquer pessoa de desfraldar um banner publicitário não autorizado da Nike.

Grande parte da discussão sobre Pequim lida com a questão de se a política tem um lugar nas Olimpíadas ou não. Os manifestantes dos direitos humanos - ou, se preferir, os divisores da camarilha do Dalai - propõem que os Jogos de Pequim podem ser uma plataforma para críticas à China, na linha das celebradas saudações do Black Power nos Jogos de 1968. Ainda assim, no estande de medalhas na Cidade do México, John Carlos e Tommie Smith estavam protestando amplamente contra as injustiças de seu próprio país, não de seus anfitriões. Este ponto se torna mais relevante à luz do fato de que dez dias antes dessas Olimpíadas, as autoridades mexicanas enviaram tanques e tropas a uma praça pública para reprimir protestos pró-democracia, massacrando centenas de manifestantes. Com a paz garantida, os Jogos continuaram.

Em que padrões olímpicos a China está aquém? A história dos Jogos é, em parte, uma história de suborno, corrupção, trapaça e doping, de todas as formas de governo e todos os cantos do mundo: a final de basquete masculino dos Estados Unidos-União Soviética em 1972, o nadador da Alemanha Oriental Rica Reinisch , o velocista canadense Ben Johnson, o boxeador sul-coreano Park Si Hun, a estrela americana do atletismo Marion Jones, o Exército da Família de corredores de longa distância do técnico chinês Ma Junren. É quase certo que alguns dos atletas que subiram ao pódio em Pequim para ter uma medalha de ouro com o fundo de jade pendurada no pescoço as devolverão depois que a repressão às drogas os alcançar.

Apesar de tudo isso, as pessoas ao redor do mundo tentarão engolir suas reservas e abraçar os Jogos. Pequim, com suas próprias deficiências, os acolhe com entusiasmo particular. Repetidamente, o comitê organizador olímpico e a imprensa estadual descrevem a realização dos Jogos como a realização de uma ambição centenária. Isso se refere não a quaisquer objetivos nacionais expressos pela decadente dinastia Qing em 1908, mas a um artigo aparentemente obscuro publicado em Tianjin naquele ano - descoberto, ao que parece, por meio de um heróico pedaço de pesquisa aplicada. A verdadeira data do registro é 1949, quando Mao proclamou a República Popular e quando a China e o mundo ocidental se viraram as costas.

Presa entre a rejeição internacional e a turbulência doméstica, a China comunista não enviou uma equipe para as Olimpíadas de Verão por 32 anos, um exílio auto-imposto que finalmente terminou em 1984. No Oeste da Guerra Fria, havia algo de cômico nas limitadas realizações atléticas da China ao longo das décadas: ali estavam centenas de milhões de pessoas, e todas elas eram boas era pingue-pongue. O fato de serem ferozmente bons nisso só tornava as coisas mais engraçadas. Mas a razão subjacente foi em grande parte geopolítica: durante a década de 1950, a federação internacional de tênis de mesa - liderada por um comunista britânico - deu as boas-vindas à China mesmo quando a relação do país com o resto do mundo dos esportes desmoronou.

O entusiasmo chinês pelo tênis de mesa, então, é menos um sinal de isolamento do que de uma abordagem prática e católica do atletismo. Essa é a base do plano da China para ganhar a contagem da medalha de ouro este ano - buscar esportes negligenciados como a canoagem e despejar recursos neles. Vitória é vitória, e o país é capaz de definir novas prioridades atléticas à medida que avança. Mas isso também reflete uma abertura de mente adequadamente olímpica, a versão local do espírito inclusivo internacional que trouxe o BMX para o decatlo e o salto em distância. Assistir aos canais de esportes da TV chinesa é, para um telespectador americano, como ver o velho “Wide World of Sports” expandido ao infinito: natação, vôlei feminino, futebol europeu, corrida de Fórmula 1, basquete das ligas menores, touradas - 24 horas por dia e tudo mais ano. Quando Pequim sediou um torneio mundial de sinuca em 2006, aconteceram partidas de sinuca das Ilhas Britânicas na TV semanas depois.

Mesmo assim, o mundo não está realmente olhando para ver se a China pode atingir os mais altos níveis internacionais de tiro com armadilha ou espada. 8 de agosto deve marcar a transformação de Pequim de uma capital totalitária sombria e empoeirada para um destino internacional brilhante. Os preparativos maximalistas - o estádio mais vanguardista de todos os tempos! O maior corpo de voluntários! Os mais numerosos mascotes de desenhos animados! - fazem parte de uma reforma ainda maior de toda a cidade, como um símbolo de uma nação transformada em um centro de prosperidade e influência no novo século. A área total combinada de canteiros de obras em Pequim é uma vez e meia o tamanho de Manhattan. Os visitantes olímpicos encontrarão linhas de metrô recém-inauguradas, novas vitrines em todos os lugares, um novo horizonte no centro da cidade com o loop vertical do prédio da Televisão Central Chinesa de Rem Koolhaas voltado para o eixo de 74 andares da Torre 3 do World Trade Center da China, em um impasse colossal freudiano no Terceiro Circular. Haverá 30 milhões de vasos de flores. Haverá wireless grátis em grande parte da cidade, pelo menos até o fim dos Jogos.

De fora, há uma tendência de ver todo o acúmulo como potemkinismo, um espetáculo para enganar os visitantes. Em alguns aspectos, pode ser assim - tente usar a rede sem fio gratuita para acessar o Blogspot, Tibet.org ou mesmo o site da BBC e veja o que acontece - mas as pessoas em Pequim, chineses e estrangeiros, continuam criando uma analogia diferente: os preparativos olímpicos são como arrumar sua casa com pressa antes que a companhia chegue. A desordem é enfiada em armários ou embaixo da cama, você limpa o banheiro que os hóspedes usarão, esconde a louça suja e desenterra garfos e guardanapos de pano combinando. Não é assim que você vive todos os dias.

Você está fraudando seus convidados? Ou você está mostrando a eles como viveria se as coisas fossem diferentes?

Biden continua dizendo que a economia estava afundando antes de ele chegar à Casa Branca

Ao longo de sua campanha para que os democratas no Congresso congestionassem sua cara proposta de infraestrutura em ambas as câmaras, Biden afirmou repetidamente que a economia estava afundando antes de ele chegar à Casa Branca.

& # 8220Lembre-se de que, quando assumi o cargo em janeiro, nossa economia estava em parafuso ”, disse Biden na semana passada.

Como noticiou o Wall Street Journal, & # 8220Biden pronunciou essas palavras oito dias depois que o Bureau de Análise Econômica de seu próprio Departamento de Comércio informou que o produto interno bruto real dos EUA & # 8216 aumentou a uma taxa anual de 6,4 por cento no primeiro trimestre de 2021. '& # 8221

Biden afirma que seu plano de infraestrutura será bom para os EUA e até potencialmente estimulará a economia, mas, conforme observado pela The Tax Foundation, os custos de gastos federais acabarão por superar os benefícios para os americanos.

& # 8220Estimamos que os gastos com infraestrutura aumentariam o PIB de longo prazo em 0,3 por cento, mas este efeito econômico positivo é totalmente compensado pelo aumento na tributação das empresas, resultando em menos investimento corporativo que reduz o PIB em 0,5 por cento no longo prazo, reduz os salários em 0,5 por cento e elimina 101.000 empregos equivalentes em tempo integral, & # 8221 a análise da Tax Foundation & # 8217s do The American Jobs Plan sugere.

Tendências empíricas no engajamento externo do CPC

Ao contrário da maioria dos outros departamentos do Comitê Central, o ID-CPC tem uma página inicial bem mantida, na qual informa extensivamente sobre suas atividades internacionais de alto nível de 2002 em diante. 4 A documentação do CPC geralmente revela com quem o CPC interage, onde e quando. Em alguns casos, o ID-CPC também fornece uma breve descrição dos tópicos discutidos. Geralmente, ele relata reuniões que envolvem funcionários de alto nível, como o ministro ou vice-ministros do ID-CPC, os chefes e vice-chefes de outros departamentos do Comitê Central ou funcionários de partido provinciais de alto nível. No total, baixamos 5.080 itens de notícias (em inglês) contendo anúncios e descrições de visitas de festa a festa ou compromissos com outros representantes estrangeiros, bem como expressões escritas de empatia, como parabéns ou condolências. Os relatórios meticulosos do CPC sobre suas atividades se alinham com as mudanças estratégicas na política externa da China. O ID-CPC desenvolveu seu site no início de 2000, quando o governo chinês lançou seu programa de diplomacia pública e incentivou vários atores a relatar suas atividades (Zhao 2015, 189). O relato público de quem está se reunindo com o CPC visa creditar legitimidade à regra do CPC e mostrar ao público doméstico e internacional que o CPC tem muitos amigos.

Antes de uma análise mais aprofundada, algumas reflexões sobre os dados são necessárias. Sendo um produto do próprio ID-CPC, os dados contêm o que o ID-CPC quer que leiamos. Para entender melhor os possíveis vieses dos relatórios, triangulamos os dados com outras fontes. Entrevistamos 16 participantes de intercâmbios partido a partido da África, Europa e China para identificar possíveis subnotificações. 5 Também triangulamos informações obtidas em notícias com jornais locais em países da África e da Ásia onde suspeitaríamos de subnotificação. Focamos especialmente em países onde as relações são controversas e, portanto, pode-se esperar uma subnotificação, por exemplo, em países que têm relações tensas com a China ou mantêm relações com Taiwan. Pelo que podemos julgar a partir das entrevistas e da análise da imprensa local, os padrões de visita, conforme documentado no site, parecem ser um proxy confiável, indicando a frequência de contato de alto nível entre o CPC e seus parceiros estrangeiros.

Contamos com um total de 3.658 contatos de delegação com interação direta entre o ID-CPC e representantes estrangeiros entre 2002 e 2017. Destes, 2.610 contatos ocorrem entre o ID-CPC e partes estrangeiras. Em outros 1.048 casos, os parceiros de interação são representantes do estado ou instituições estatais sem afiliação relatada a um partido (como reis ou diplomatas), instituições de pesquisa ou atores empresariais. Contamos cada interação parte a parte apenas uma vez, mesmo se a visita de uma mesma delegação de parte for descrita em vários itens de notícias. Quando uma notícia descreve várias reuniões com parceiros de diferentes partes durante a visita de uma única delegação do ID-CPC em um país estrangeiro, consideramos que cada parte tem uma interação com o ID-CPC.

O número de contatos do CPC com representantes partidários e não partidários aumentou substancialmente entre 2002 e 2017 (figura 1). Particularmente após a aquisição pelo presidente Xi em 2012, há um aumento acentuado nas atividades do ID-CPC. O CPC se envolve principalmente com funcionários de outros partidos, contatos não partidários são muito menos frequentes. De acordo com a documentação do próprio CPC, identificamos contato com 462 partidos políticos diferentes em 161 países entre 2002 e 2017. 6 O ID-CPC geralmente recebe mais visitantes em Pequim do que viaja para o exterior para reuniões (figura 2). Isso não é surpreendente, visto que o ID-CPC precisa investir mais recursos para viajar ao exterior do que para receber hóspedes estrangeiros na China.

Quantidade de contatos do ID-CPC com representantes partidários e não partidários.

CCP explora seu poder de compra com grande vantagem

Após 10 anos de prática, o Partido Comunista Chinês dominou a arte da diplomacia de pedidos de compra. A habilidade se reflete no controle do tempo. A China tem sido bastante eficaz em aumentar a influência diplomática do pedido de compra, estendendo o período de atividades de compra ou prolongando o processo de contratação. Nos primeiros dias, a diplomacia da ordem de compra era geralmente um negócio único que durava menos de um mês. Nos anos posteriores, no entanto, o CCP desenvolveu uma estratégia mais eficaz ao tornar o processo de compra uma negociação mais longa, enviando delegações em lotes para fazer pedidos de compra. Esses pedidos foram colocados estrategicamente antes e depois das visitas de seus principais líderes. Às vezes, as atividades duram mais de seis meses.

Por exemplo, entre novembro de 2003 e janeiro de 2004, quatro delegações de compras foram enviadas aos Estados Unidos. Os pedidos abrangeram aviões, automóveis, soja e equipamentos de telecomunicações. O período geral durou mais de dois meses. Em 18 de novembro de 2003, o governo dos EUA repentinamente fez um anúncio de que estabeleceria restrições de cotas para as importações de tecidos, roupões de banho e espartilhos chineses. Como o anúncio estava ocorrendo durante as atividades de compra da China em andamento, Pequim respondeu em tempo hábil ao suspender uma delegação que compraria soja dos Estados Unidos. A suspensão colocou muita pressão nos mercados agrícolas dos EUA. Vários membros do Congresso dos principais estados produtores de soja e trigo, incluindo o líder democrata do Senado, Tom Daschle, pressionaram o governo Bush e, eventualmente, efetuaram concessões do governo dos EUA. A China restaurou a delegação de compra de soja semanas depois.

As habilidades diplomáticas dos comunistas chineses nas negociações comerciais alcançaram um novo patamar com a extensão do tempo de duração do processo de contratação. Pequim evitaria cometer um grande negócio, mas, em vez disso, começaria com o acordo-quadro ou um acordo de intenções e, finalmente, assinou o contrato durante as visitas de alto nível. Os pedidos de compra de aviões geralmente eram feitos dessa maneira. Desde a intenção original de compra até a assinatura final do contrato, houve três ou quatro rodadas do processo de confirmação oficial, com duração de dois a três anos. Cada processo de confirmação criaria a necessidade de uma boa atmosfera diplomática e política de ambos os lados, efetivamente estendendo o período em que o PCCh controla o relacionamento bilateral. Essa forma de negociação mostrou um amadurecimento das habilidades comunistas chinesas para obter os resultados que desejavam.

É claro que qualquer grande comprador terá muita vantagem nas negociações comerciais. Essa é a natureza de ser um grande comprador em um sistema capitalista também.

Na China, eles estão fechando igrejas, prendendo pastores - e até mesmo reescrevendo as escrituras

No final de outubro, o pastor de uma das igrejas clandestinas mais conhecidas da China perguntou o seguinte a sua congregação: eles haviam espalhado o evangelho com sucesso por toda a cidade? “Se amanhã de manhã a Early Rain Covenant Church repentinamente desaparecesse da cidade de Chengdu, se cada um de nós desaparecesse no ar, esta cidade seria diferente? Alguém sentiria nossa falta? " disse Wang Yi, inclinando-se sobre seu púlpito e parando para deixar a pergunta pesar em sua audiência. "Eu não sei."

Quase três meses depois, o cenário hipotético de Wang está sendo posto à prova. A igreja no sudoeste da China foi fechada e Wang e sua esposa, Jiang Rong, permanecem detidos depois que a polícia prendeu mais de 100 membros da igreja Early Rain em dezembro. Muitos dos que não foram detidos estão escondidos. Outros foram mandados embora de Chengdu e impedidos de retornar. Alguns, incluindo a mãe de Wang e seu filho, estão sob estreita vigilância. Wang e sua esposa estão sendo acusados de “incitação à subversão”, crime que acarreta pena de até 15 anos de prisão.

Now the hall Wang preached from sits empty, the pulpit and cross that once hung behind him both gone. Prayer cushions have been replaced by a ping-pong table and a film of dust. New tenants, a construction company and a business association, occupy the three floors the church once rented. Plainclothes police stand outside, turning away those looking for the church.

One of the officers told the Observer: “I have to tell you to leave and watch until you get in a car and go.”

Wang Yi, pastor of the Early Rain church, who was arrested and detained three months ago, along with his wife. Photograph: Early Rain/Facebook

Early Rain is the latest victim of what Chinese Christians and rights activists say is the worst crackdown on religion since the country’s Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong’s government vowed to eradicate religion.

Researchers say the current drive, fuelled by government unease over the growing number of Christians and their potential links to the west, is aimed not so much at destroying Christianity but bringing it to heel.

“The government has orchestrated a campaign to ‘sinicise’ Christianity, to turn Christianity into a fully domesticated religion that would do the bidding of the party,” said Lian Xi, a professor at Duke University in North Carolina, who focuses on Christianity in modern China.

Over the past year, local governments have shut hundreds of unofficial congregations or “house churches” that operate outside the government-approved church network, including Early Rain. A statement signed by 500 house church leaders in November says authorities have removed crosses from buildings, forced churches to hang the Chinese flag and sing patriotic songs, and barred minors from attending.

Churchgoers say the situation will get worse as the campaign reaches more of the country. Another church in Chengdu was placed under investigation last week. Less than a week after the mass arrest of Early Rain members, police raided a children’s Sunday school at a church in Guangzhou. Officials have also banned the 1,500-member Zion church in Beijing after its pastor refused to install CCTV.

In November the Guangzhou Bible Reformed Church was shut for the second time in three months. “The Chinese Communist party (CCP) wants to be the God of China and the Chinese people. But according to the Bible only God is God. The government is scared of the churches,” said Huang Xiaoning, the church’s pastor.

Local governments have also shut the state-approved “sanzi” churches. Sunday schools and youth ministries have been banned. One of the first signs of a crackdown was when authorities forcibly removed more than 1,000 crosses from sanzi churches in Zhejiang province between 2014 and 2016.

“The goal of the crackdown is not to eradicate religions,” said Ying Fuk Tsang, director of the Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “President Xi Jinping is trying to establish a new order on religion, suppressing its blistering development. [The government] aims to regulate the ‘religious market’ as a whole.”

While the CCP is officially atheist, Protestantism and Catholicism are two of five faiths sanctioned by the government and religious freedom has been enshrined in the constitution since the 1980s. For decades, authorities tolerated the house churches, which refused to register with government bodies that required church leaders to adapt teachings to follow party doctrine.

Members of the Early Rain Covenant Church pray during a meeting in their church before it was shut down in December 2018.

As China experienced an explosion in the number of religious believers, the government has grown wary of Christianity and Islam in particular, with their overseas links. In Xinjiang, a surveillance and internment system has been built for Muslim minorities, notably the Uighurs.

Xi has called for the country to guard against “infiltration” through religion and extremist ideology.

“What happens in Xinjiang and what happens to house churches is connected,” said Eva Pils, a professor of law at King’s College London, focusing on human rights. “Those kinds of new attitudes have translated into different types of measures against Christians, which amount to intensified persecution of religious groups.”

There are at least 60 million Christians in China, spanning rural and urban areas. Congregation-based churches can organise large groups across the country and some have links with Christian groups abroad.

Pastors such as Wang of Early Rain are especially alarming for authorities. Under Wang, a legal scholar and public intellectual, the church has advocated for parents of children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake – deaths many critics say were caused by poor government-run construction – or for families of those affected by faulty vaccines. Every year the church commemorates victims of the 4 June protests in 1989, which were forcibly put down by the Chinese military.

“Early Rain church is one of the few who dare to face what is wrong in society,” said one member. “Most churches don’t dare talk about this, but we obey strictly obey the Bible, and we don’t avoid anything.”

Wang and Early Rain belong to what some see as a new generation of Christians that has emerged alongside a growing civil rights movement. Increasingly, activist church leaders have taken inspiration from the democratising role the church played in eastern European countries in the Soviet bloc or South Korea under martial law, according to Lian. Several of China’s most active human rights lawyers are Christians.

“They have come to see the political potential of Christianity as a force for change,” said Lian. “What really makes the government nervous is Christianity’s claim to universal rights and values.”

Catholics wait to take communion during the Palm Sunday mass at a ‘house church’ near Shijiazhuang. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

As of 2018, the government has implemented sweeping rules on religious practices, adding more requirements for religious groups and barring unapproved organisations from engaging in any religious activity. But the campaign is not just about managing behaviour. One of the goals of a government work plan for “promoting Chinese Christianity” between 2018 and 2022 is “thought reform”. The plan calls for “retranslating and annotating” the Bible, to find commonalities with socialism and establish a “correct understanding” of the text.

“Ten years ago, we used to be able to say the party was not really interested in what people believed internally,” said Pils. “Xi Jinping’s response is much more invasive and it is in some ways returning to Mao-era attempts to control hearts and minds.”

Bibles, sales of which have always been controlled in China, are no longer available for purchase online, a loophole that had existed for years. In December, Christmas celebrations were banned in several schools and cities across China.

“Last year’s crackdown is the worst in three decades,” said Bob Fu, the founder of ChinaAid, a Christian advocacy group based in the US.

In Chengdu, Early Rain has not vanished. Before the raid, a plan was in place to preserve the church, with those who were not arrested expected to keep it running, holding meetings wherever they could. Slowly, more Early Rain members are being released. As of 9 January, 25 were still in detention.

They maintain contact through encrypted platforms. On New Year’s Eve, 300 people joined an online service, some from their homes, others from cars or workplaces, to pray for 2019. Others gather in small groups in restaurants and parks. One member, a student who was sent back to Guangzhou, said he preaches the gospel to the police who monitor him.

The church continues to send out daily scripture and posts videos of sermons. In one, pastor Wang alludes to the coming crackdown: “In this war, in Xinjiang, in Shanghai, in Beijing, in Chengdu, the rulers have chosen an enemy that can never be imprisoned – the soul of man. Therefore they are doomed to lose this war.”

Why was the US table tennis team sent to communist China even after a difference in ideology? - História

Historically, Americans have not been very effective in dealing with the radical mindset. Like Neville Chamberlain, who really believed the growing hostility with Hitler’s Germany was just a big misunderstanding, Americans have too often believed that if we could only sit down with the Osama bin Ladens of the world they would see that we are a sincere, reasonable people and violence is of no benefit to anyone.

Tucker Carlson wondered why airborne units aren’t used to quell the rioting. They were once.

Contained in the century-long slow leak of Christianity from Western culture are many things of value, not the least of which is the doctrine of evil. Now, a vaguely expressed secular notion that people are basically good and are motivated by similar desires and felt needs is the reigning paradigm.

But conflict with some people, some nations, and some groups is not a question of mutual understanding. It is a question of evil. It is a lesson Americans learned the hard way — but learn it they did — during the Korean War. And in this culturally defining moment, it is a lesson we would do well to recall.

After Operation Chromite in September of 1950 — MacArthur’s daring landing at Inchon and drive across the Korean Peninsula — hundreds of thousands of (North) Korea People’s Army (KPA) soldiers were encircled, captured, and destroyed. As a consequence, the UN prisoner of war population swiftly rose from less than a thousand in August to more than 130,000 by November.

Makeshift POW camps were hastily constructed to house more than 80,000 of that number on Koje-do (Geoje in many modern spellings), a county-sized island just off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. Prisoners were divided into four massive enclosures, with each containing eight compounds. U.S. soldiers of subpar quality and insufficient quantity were assigned to keep them there.

When ceasefire negotiations began at Kaesong in July 1951 — which were later moved to Panmunjom — resistance among prisoners became systemic, organized, and violent. Messages were cleverly passed between Gen. Nam Il, North Korea’s chief negotiator at the talks, all the way to Koje-do, where they were delivered through the wire to the communist leaders within the prison camps.

The general’s instructions were clear: create martyrs for the communist cause and thereby undermine America’s moral authority at the negotiating table. To this end, communist enforcers at Koje-do accused their jailers of brutality, cultural insensitivity, and gross mistreatment they staged riots in an effort to provoke an armed response and they prepared for a general prison breakout, to force the UN to transfer front line troops to the rear echelons.

Brigadier Gen. Francis Dodd, the commander of the Koje-do island installation, naively took prisoner complaints at face value. Hence, the communist strategy, part of an old radical playbook, met with startling success. Prisoner violence (usually against other prisoners) was largely overlooked while every accusation of mistreatment from their guards resulted in an investigation, dismissal, and a Drew Brees-like mea culpa. But the communist leaders would not be placated. Like the endgame to coronavirus quarantines, the goalposts were continually moved.

In his classic history of the Korean conflict, This Kind of War, T. R. Fehrenbach writes,

[In World War II] it was not until 1943 Americans had any prisoners, and these were from a foe of the same basic culture, who sensed they were already beaten. (There had never been enough Japanese POWs to matter.) But in Korea the United States not only had taken thousands of POW’s of alien culture it faced an alien psychology also.

On May 7, 1952, Dodd, failing to understand the “alien psychology” of which Fehrenbach wrote, agreed to meet with KPA Senior Col. Lee Hak Ku at the gate of Compound 76. It was there that Dodd stood before a rioting prisoner mob like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. At a prearranged signal, the American general was seized and pulled deep inside the compound before guards could react. Any attempt to rescue him by force, Americans were told, would result in Gen. Dodd’s immediate execution.

What followed was, in the words of Gen. Mark Clark, “the biggest flap of the war.” In the stuff of a Hollywood epic drama, Dodd was placed on trial for crimes against humanity while ideologically unreliable prisoners were tried and summarily executed by the fanatical communists within the camp.

North Korea and China wasted no time in accusing the U.S. of violating the Geneva Convention. And in a mind-bending twist of facts, the likes of which have not been seen since the New York Times e a Washington Post last went to print, their anti-American allies in the media quickly turned the Koje-do fiasco into a propaganda bonanza. Moscow’s Pravda screamed,

Koje Island! Again, we learn that “civilized” Americans can be yet more inhuman, yet more infamous than the bloody Hitlerites. Dachau was a death camp, Maidenek was a death factory Koje is a whole island of death. The American hangmen are torturing, tormenting, and killing unarmed people here. They are experimenting with their poisons on them.

At Panmunjom, Gen. Nam capitalized on his own success in engineering the revolt on Koje-do:

Day after day, facing his opposite numbers across the conference table, Nam II poured out crocodile tears for the fate of the communist prisoners whom he alleged were suffering fiendish torments inflicted by the “sadistic and inhuman” United Nations jailers. Under a smoke screen of pious platitudes, Nam Il coolly directed the apparatus of subversion, terrorism, and political murder which throttled anti-communist opposition among the POW’s and turned the compounds at Koje-do into armed camps of Red defiance.

An embarrassed President Truman ordered outgoing UN Commander Gen. Matthew Ridgway to bring Koje-do to heel. Ridgway simply passed the problem along to incoming UN Commander Gen. Mark Clark who, in turn, ordered Brigadier Gen. Haydon “Bull” Boatner to the island to quell the insurrection brewing there.

Upon inspection, Boatner quickly realized just how badly the situation had been handled by his predecessors. The compounds had become “autonomous zones” where no American dared go. In the fashion of Seattle’s own autonomous zone leader Raz Simone, Colonel Lee paraded about like a peacock, drilling his soldiers — now armed with knives, flails, spears, and stolen gasoline to make Molotov cocktails — and prepared them for what Boatner could only guess was an attempt to take over the whole island and slaughter its inhabitants.

Boatner, the 14th commander of the prison installation in two years, ordered an immediate evacuation of all civilians from the island. To do the job of breaking resistance at Koje-do, he then demanded that Clark give him a thousand paratroopers from the 187th Regimental Combat Team then in Japan. The so-called “Rakkasans” — literally “umbrella men,” a nickname given to them by the Japanese during the occupation of that country — were a battle-hardened regiment. As if that weren’t enough, the 187th had been recently supplemented by elements of the now-decimated and decommissioned elite Airborne Ranger units. Clark, over a barrel, reluctantly agreed.

My father, one of the aforementioned Rangers, recalled being on leave in Tokyo when he and others received notice that they had two hours to finish their drinks, kiss their girls goodbye, and return to base to prepare for immediate deployment to an unknown destination.

“We thought we were going back into combat. Instead, we deplaned on Koje. By that time, the whole world knew about the SNAFU there. We were briefed and told it would be our job to crush any opposition to breaking up the compounds and moving the prisoners to new ones. That suited us. No man on leave and ordered back into the field does so happily. To say that we arrived in a bad mood is putting it mildly.”

The sudden disappearance of the island’s civilians only to be rapidly replaced by this elite force was an ominous sign to the communist hardliners that there was a new sheriff in town. Then, writes Fehrenbach:

Boatner had the paratroops stage a mock advance into an empty compound next to 76, with fixed bayonets and flamethrowers, while the communist prisoners watched. The demonstration went like clockwork it had been timed and scheduled to the second, and every officer briefed on his part. The demonstration was both impressive and frightening.

According to Gen. Clark, “Staff planning for this operation was done as carefully as for any orthodox military campaign.” Boatner then set up loudspeakers and, in English, Korean, and Chinese, he informed prisoners that if they failed to lay down their arms and divide themselves into groups of 500 for relocation, the boys at his back would be sent in, and they would not shrink from violence. The choice was theirs. Instead of complying with his directive, prisoners barricaded the main gate, dug trenches, and killed any who broke ranks.

The following day, June 10, 1952, at 5:45 a.m., Boatner gave one more warning over the loudspeakers. It was a waste of time. The prisoners, like rioters of recent vintage, shouted defiance and hurled objects — and thus they sealed their own fate.

Boatner decided to start with Compound 76, where most of the communist hardliners were concentrated. Beat them down in full view of the other compounds, he reasoned, and the rest will meekly surrender. It was a savvy move.

“Paratroops are a sharp but fragile tool,” says Fehrenbach, “which, since they cannot be used and then put back into the bottle, are best reserved for special missions … these men wanted to fight. Any fight, anywhere, would do.”

With a full complement of UN observers and members of the international press watching from a nearby hillside — you, too, can watch it all here — Boatner sent in the 187th. Instead of attempting to breach the front gate, they cut the wire at the rear of Compound 76 and entered with fixed bayonets and no cartridges in the chambers. No man was to shoot without a direct order from an officer:

The paratroops advanced, slowly, grimly, pushing them back. Now there was chaos. The POW’s had set their huts afire, and smoke blanketed the area, choking men, obscuring vision. In the Korean press, a number of men panicked, and tried to run. They were killed by their own people, with spears in the back. Then the tough paratroopers met the lines of Koreans, and in a wild melee broke the back of their resistance.

After an hour-and-a-half of fighting and without firing a shot, Boatner was master of Compound 76. Like Saddam Hussein a half a century later, Col. Lee Hak Ku was found cowering in a hole. Literally dragged from it by the seat of his pants, the colonel faced a grim fate — but not from the Americans. Repatriated to North Korea, he was tried and shot in a manner that likely mirrored the kangaroo courts of 76. As for the other compounds, having witnessed firsthand the display of power, their resistance wilted, and order was restored to the island.

Speaking of the incident at Koje-do after the war, General Clark observed that “[It] is in itself both a case study in the technique of communist intrigue and a dire warning of the efficiency and imagination of the communist conspiracy against us.”

All of this should sound eerily familiar to Americans watching the recent riots sweeping the country from Seattle to New York. Yes, I recognize the difference between peaceful protesters and rioters. And I likewise recognize that many well-intentioned people are swept up in both. They are what economist Ludwig von Mises called “useful innocents.” But no one who has studied or observed the tactics of communist, fascist, anarchist, or radical Islamic agitators can fail to recognize that at the core of the Black Lives Matter (and Antifa) movement lies a violent ideology masquerading as a champion of the very things it seeks to undermine: justice and equality.

Before rioting, looting, and lawlessness become, to use a phrase the Left would give us for an altogether different reason, the “new normal,” Americans would do well to look to the past and learn the lessons of Koje-do and the broader lessons that the Cold War taught us about dealing with radical secular ideologies — and make no mistake about it, that is precisely what we are now facing.

As the useful innocents — or idiots, as the case may be — in government, industry, the academy, and even churches rush headlong to apologize for wrongs real and imagined and declare their allegiance to Black Lives Matter, I cannot help but think that these Americans are singing a song of German origin they do not understand, and behind it all is Marx, the master lyricist.

Are the U.S. and China in a Cold War?

To be fair, the U.S.-China relationship had already begun to deteriorate under the Obama Administration when Beijing, starting in 2013, moved to militarize the South China Sea. It did this by creating a total of seven new islands, which it used to house military facilities, and became increasingly confrontational in its relationship with its neighbors.

As a candidate for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump had repeatedly claimed that the terms of U.S. -China trade were unfair to the U.S. that they had resulted in the loss of millions of high paying manufacturing jobs that both the Chinese government, its state-owned enterprises and private Chinese companies were routinely stealing American technology and that China had taken advantage of the U.S.

Nonetheless, the Trump Administration, notwithstanding that many of its trade officials were notoriously "China hawks," did show a willingness to continue the Sino-American economic relationship, albeit on radically reset terms.

The term "Cold War" was coined in 1947 by Bernard Baruch, a prominent financier and longtime advisor to the U.S. government, to describe the state of U.S. -Soviet relations and the challenges they posed to the U.S. The term resonated with American media and was quickly adopted to describe what historians called, "a war without fighting or bloodshed, but a battle nonetheless."

The Cold War between Washington and Moscow lasted approximately 40 years. It was fought mostly by proxies and in the shadows of covert intelligence operations. To call it bloodless is a misnomer. Bullets fired by proxies were just as lethal as those fired by the military forces that sponsored them a lesson driven home to both American and Soviet soldiers in conflicts ranging from Afghanistan to Vietnam.

It's hard to see how the experience of the Soviet-American Cold War is analogous to the current state of Sino-American relations. The U.S. is not engaged in any military conflicts where its opponents are Chinese proxies.

There have been military clashes between the military forces of China and those of its neighbors. Some, like the Philippines, are bound to the U.S. by defense treaties. Others, like Vietnam or India, have no such agreements, much less any explicit U.S. guarantees of their security, but share a common interest with Washington in preventing Chinese encroachment on their sovereignty. While those incidents had casualties, although none were American, they fall far short of the proxy conflicts that characterized the Soviet-American Cold War.

The U.S. and China are involved in a wide-ranging economic competition, one that spills over into American bilateral relations with other countries, and also impacts the "rules" of an international system that has evolved, largely under American leadership, in the postwar period. The U.S. competes economically with other countries, most notably Japan and the European Union, but this rivalry is different from the Sino-American one.

First, while countries like Japan or the members of the EU compete economically with the U.S., and while they may seek to shape the "rules" of world trade and the international economic system to their advantage, they stop short of seeking a wholesale replacement of the U.S. dollar-centric global financial system. Even the creation of the euro as the common currency of the EU, while it had the added advantage of being an alternative reserve currency to the U.S. dollar, was never envisioned to be a replacement for it.

Secondly, except for China, the other major countries with which the U.S. competes economically are ones that are aligned with the U.S. militarily and, with some exceptions, diplomatically. While economic growth and technological innovation may enhance a U.S. ally's military capabilities, such enhancements do not have bearing on U.S. national security. Indeed, in most cases, they enhance it by expanding alliance wide capabilities or diminishing the U.S. contribution to the common defense.

China is the exception to this rule. The growth of the Chinese economy and its technological sophistication directly impact Beijing's military capabilities while, at the same time, enhancing its diplomatic power. Chinese military and foreign policy has become increasingly, nationalistic, aggressive and combative, a style the Chinese media calls "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy." That means China's economic growth has a direct bearing on America's defense and diplomatic posture in East Asia, specifically and generally in the Indo-Pacific basin.

Not only does that posture increase American defense requirements in the region, it also raises the probability that aggressive Chinese actions, especially ones aimed at countries with which the U.S. has a defense agreement, will lead to a confrontation or even a military clash with the U.S. Currently, Beijing has territorial disputes with every one of its 14 neighbors. In some of these disputes, it is unilaterally changing the "facts on the ground."

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Review

“[An] accomplished study of China and sport. Where Olympic Dreams scores highest is in describing and explaining the importance of the Olympic Games to China's self-esteem and its sense of belonging on the international stage, and how successive leaders have focused on the powerful political platform the event provides.”―Clifford Coonan, South China Morning Post

“In this history of sports in China over the past century, Xu accents the cultural intertwining of athletics and politics as the country continually increases its emphasis on the former to enhance its stature in the world.”―John Maxymuk, Diário da Biblioteca

“Thoroughly researched and lucidly articulated, Mr. Xu‘s book provides a unique perspective on China through the history of sports. Just as baseball and football define the heart and mind of America, China’s promotion of various sports as national games also speaks to the cultural psyche of a country seeking recognition in the global political arena.”―Yunte Huang, Santa Barbara News-Press

“Probably no Olympic Games has been so deeply tied to a political project as Beijing's. The links between politics in China and the games are well told in Olympic Dreams by the historian, Xu Guoqi, who describes how for more than a century the Olympics has been wrapped up in Chinese ideas about national revival and international prestige.”―Geoff Dyer, Financial Times

“Xu Guoqi's masterful survey of China's hundred-year tryst with the Olympics, Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008, reminds the reader that sports have been central to the construction of the Chinese nation and its links with the rest of the world. Xu shows how politicians have micromanaged every aspect of China's sporting progress.”―Mark Leonard, Chronicle of Higher Education

“What distinguishes this. from so many of the recent flood of books on China, is its emphasis on the political and national role of sport in the Chinese ascendancy. The Olympics are emblematic of the "new" China but, interestingly, [Xu] speculates on whether the long-held dream of the Communist party to host the Olympics may well spell the beginning of its end.”―Steven Carroll, The Age

“This highly readable book traces the history of China's sporting ambition, from an obscure lecture in Tientsin in 1908 to the "high-quality Olympics with Chinese characteristics". It is a useful introduction to an awkward topic that simply won't go away.”―Michael Rank, O guardião

“A thoughtful and highly informative book that all interested in the Beijing Olympics will find rewarding, and it should be required reading for journalists covering the 2008 Games.”―Steve Tsang, Times Higher Education Supplement

“The entire history of [China's] involvement with the Olympics, and international sport in general, has been overtly political, as Xu Guoqi ably demonstrates in Olympic Dreams.”―Tod Hoffman, Montreal Gazette

“Thoroughly researched and painstakingly footnoted.”―Garth Woolsey, Toronto Star

“The 2008 Beijing games, like other sporting events in the past, will be a window into Chinese national pride and global ambitions. Even though Olympic Dreams was written before the March Tibet riots and the subsequent outbursts of Chinese nationalism, Mr. Xu’s general argument still stands, and is even somewhat prescient. Mr. Xu has a clear and readable writing style, and his analysis is punctuated with lively examples. Beijing’s politicization of sports clearly has some uniquely Chinese characteristics. But that is not necessarily the main lesson of this book. Examples of similar phenomena―from Hungary to Argentina―remind that sports and politics are often two sides of the same coin. The grander the event, the more political the stakes.”―Emily Parker, Far Eastern Economic Review

About the Author

From The Washington Post

The Chinese government has said over and over in the last few months that the Beijing Olympics should not be politicized. The uproar over Tibet has no place in the Games, officials insist. Nor do humanitarian concerns over Sudan's Darfur region belong in the Olympic spotlight. As for human rights in China itself, well, that's an internal matter.

Yet, politics have long been at the heart of China's relations with the modern Olympic movement, as Xu Guoqi, an associate professor at Kalamazoo College, shows in his illuminating history, Olympic Dreams. The first time China participated in the Games, in 1932 at Los Angeles, the goal was to prevent Japan from scoring a propaganda coup. Japanese occupation authorities had planned to dispatch a stocky Chinese sprinter named Liu Changchun to represent the Manchukuo republic, the puppet state Japan had set up in Manchuria and Mongolia. To foil that plan, China's Nationalist government hurriedly scraped together some money and sent Liu as a one-man Chinese delegation. He fared poorly as a sprinter but held high the Chinese flag.

Later on, Mao Zedong saw sports victories as a way to prove the superiority of the socialist way. On advice from the U.S.S.R., China cultivated national teams. But during the first two decades of Communist rule, China kept its athletes out of the Olympics to protest Taiwan's participation. (More recently, both China and Taiwan have sent teams under artful compromises over the island's name.)

When Mao decided the time had come to make friends in the West, he also found sports a handy tool for that purpose. Mao and President Nixon had been exchanging secret messages through intermediaries for months before the Chinese sent a team to the World Table Tennis Championship in Japan in April 1971. As Xu relates, Zhou En-lai, who was in charge of foreign relations, issued detailed instructions to the Chinese players on what to do if they met Americans. "The Chinese were not permitted to exchange team flags," for example, but they "could shake hands," Xu notes. When American player Glenn Cowan jumped on a Chinese bus to greet Chinese star Zhuang Zedong, Zhuang was ready with a silk painting to present as a gift. Mao then gave the order for the Chinese players to invite the U.S. team to China by the end of the month, the Americans had alighted in Beijing. "The small ping-pong ball, worth only about 25 cents, played a unique and significant role . . . in transforming Sino-U.S. relations," Xu concludes.

Even before Mao, sports had played an eminently political role in China. Chinese nationalists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw athletics as a way to create vigorous men who could wage war and change the country's reputation as the "sick man of east Asia." As part of the national revival they hoped to foster, they embraced Western sports to counter the Mandarin paradigm of Chinese men as spindly, sedentary and effete.

Despite the reformers' efforts, to some degree the old paradigm has remained alive. Traditionally, most Chinese have been brought up to think they should be clever, disciplined and able to bear hardship, but not powerful or swift. Because Yao Ming's jousts with fellow NBA giants and Liu Xiang's triumph in the 110-meter hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics shattered racial stereotypes, they were hailed as breakthroughs by a new generation of Chinese. The 2008 Beijing Olympics, where China hopes to win more medals than any other nation, also was intended to have a political message.

Since abandoning doctrinaire socialism three decades ago, China has enjoyed an economic explosion that has given its 1.3 billion people a standard of living their parents could hardly imagine, and the government has entered into normal relations with most countries, becoming a diplomatic as well as an economic player in Asia and beyond. By hosting the Games, China was going to celebrate this status. Perhaps more important, it was going to receive international recognition of its achievements and, in some measure, acceptance of the Communist Party's glacial pace toward political change.

Xu's misfortune, and China's, is that this landscape, which he ably paints in his final chapter, shifted not long after the manuscript was sent to the printer. Riots in Tibet and protests along the Olympic Torch relay route created a global audience for questions about China's worthiness to host the Olympics. The atmosphere has soured badly, and no one knows whether it can be repaired before the Games begin in August.

The May 12 earthquake in Sichuan also will affect the Olympics. A country in mourning, China is likely to attract sympathy. But sorrow may change the tone of the event. Xu's history of China's participation in the Olympics remains enlightening, but the unsettled 2008 Games have become the stuff of journalism, changing every day.