Cup of Cha
This is China

We know there won’t be any foreign, Xinjiang or Tibetan tourists in Beijing during the Olympics. But that (or at least the first part of that) might not be such a bad thing. Aside from that inconvenient fact, what if these Games basically go off perfectly? It seems entirely possible, depending on your definition of “perfectly.” Would that even be a good thing?

Yesterday I was reading an article about how the traffic and factory regulations are planned to go into effect today, drastically reducing the goop being projected into the air locally. (I say “locally” because much of it is coming in from elsewhere in the country.) Yet reading the article, it actually made sense, possibly because it was such a nice, clear day again today:

Under the two-month plan, vehicles will be allowed on the roads every other day depending on even-odd registration numbers. In addition, 300,000 heavy polluting vehicles — aging industrial trucks, many of which operate only at night — were banned beginning July 1.

Is it possible that those horrible trucks you bike past on the way back from the pub (or more specifically, the current lack of them) are the main reason for the recent clearish air? Moreover, pollution readings around the city have shown positive signs in July. This from the Beijing Air Blog:

The average API over the first 15 days of July is only 73, well below the average value of 100, so it seems our daily portion of rain, and a bit of wind, clears the air quite well.

Sounds good. Except that’s still way above acceptable levels for other cities. Plus:

…the correctness of official data from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, may be questioned (in addition to the dubious changes in monitoring stations). BBC measured PM10 values last week of more than double the officially reported values as reported in this article, but in their enthusiasm they compared the reported API directly with their measurements of PM10 (microgram per cubic meter). API and PM10 are not the same as i explain here. So in fact the reported values are up to 50% higher than shown in their graph, and much closer to their own measurements. By coincidence this makes it look more spectacular of course… For example the API value of 8 July is 98, which corresponds to a PM10 of slightly less than 150, but in the BBC graph it is shown as 98 on the PM10 scale.

Hmm…that sounds complicated. So maybe the air is much better, but maybe it’s only a little better. And maybe it has to do with the trucks. And maybe not. Perhaps the air will lose its unique color for the Games.

So what happens if we get beautiful blue sky for August, with no shots fired at journalists or tourists? One thing is for sure: the Chinese Government will declare the Games to be a glorious success. (Note: they will do this regardless for the domestic audience.) My greatest fear is that things would go so well that the government will feel justified in their policies of oppressive visa restrictions, lax environmental standards and invasive/outrageous media policies.

This sort puts me in the position of a candidate running against an incumbent. He has to hope that progress just before an election does not obscure a long history of poor policy. Does this mean that I want the Games to be a disaster, any more than Obama wants the American economy to go down the drain? Of course not. I want things to go really well. But it it is critical that a successful Olympics does not blind the government to the very real problems they need to deal with.

Now, we already know that economically these Games are turning out to be a disaster for the hotel industry, at the very least. Restaurants and bars like the Kro’s Nest, located inside the Worker Stadium facility, are being summarily shut down, costing the owners vast sums of money, for which they are almost certainly not being reimbursed. So regardless, there will be some real losers in this.

Plus anyone who likes sitting outside to eat or have a beer, admittedly a much smaller cost to these people. I have already been told by a number of tiny local restaurants that they cannot set up outside seating, because the situation right now is “strict.” My personal theory on forcing the temporary end to sidewalk seating is the Chinese Government’s clever way to take a dig at the French. Perhaps I’m giving them too much credit.

Indeed, they appear to prefer the model of none other the Mayor Combover, the great Rudy. This according to The Telegraph (perhaps they might want to update their name):

Among other restrictions are on dancing in bars not licensed as dance halls, and that all patrons must carry passports or identity cards.

Holy mid-1990s New York City, Batman!

But, overall, early bar closings and low tourism numbers will hardly tarnish Chinese reputation. internationally. Serious harassment by the police or black skies will, but those are two things that may or may not happen. Who knows, all of this craziness might build toward two weeks of epic fun.

But I did stock up on bottled water, canned food and beer yesterday just in case. (Just kidding. No beer. Better pick that up tomorrow.)

Share This

Tags: ban, bars, pollution, rudy, traffic
Follow Comments via RSS Feed
You can leave a response or trackback from your site.