This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 21 Aug 2008, by tony curzon price.
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31 Aug 08
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A deeper look at the Zhang Yimou spectacular - aided by an awareness of the film-director's transition from perceptive artist to stately heritage-peddler - goes some way to confirm the argument that China's control-freakery still crushes true individuality and spontaneity. True, there was a strong element of kitsch nationalism in this staged and triumphal pageant of historical and cultural achievement. China, apart from North Korea, is probably the only remaining country that can harness this degree of coordinating energy, focused resources and (since this is China) sheer multitudes for an event of this kind. The Pyongyang reference is telling: for all the technical wizardry, in part it evoked a more sinister world of mass rallies and conformist ultra-collectivism.
And yet, this was not all it was
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Beijing Olympics will change China, but that to some extent they already have. This is clearer if all the events and festivities are seen in the context of what went before: the consequences of winning the right to host (including extensive soul-searching about China's image in the world), the unsettling events of 2008 (the Tibet uprising, the Sichuan earthquake, the torch-relay protests) which have led to vehement criticism around the world of the country's political system and leadership.
China's leaders have been shocked and many of its people injured by this. They realise that it is not enough any more to be known simply for economic success and dynamism; they feel they (and their country) deserve better.
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The Olympics reveal (and have helped guarantee) that it has many resources: the infrastructure, the capital, the will to carry itself forwards to becoming a modern, middle-income economy. It could even aspire to be much more than this. But it will need great assistance from the outside world: in technology (to fix its severe environmental problems), and in internationalising its companies and brands.
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21 Aug 08
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it will need great assistance from the outside world: in technology (to fix its severe environmental problems), and in internationalising its companies and brands.
If its leadership does realise the blindness of the first option and the necessity of the second, the imm
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