Arranging Chinese and U.S. flags on stage at the Third China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue at Grand Epoch City on Dec. 13, 2007, in Xianghe, China. (AP Photo)

Once upon a time, just a few decades ago, the United States saw Communist China as a revolutionary threat, but a revolution with barefoot soldiers.

Then came China’s opening, and the U.S. saw a billion Chinese customers. It turns out, Americans were the big customers. Now China is getting rich, and, some say, leading a revolution in the whole world order — away from the West. Away from the American era, American values, American power. That’s big.

It seems like only yesterday that American scholar Francis Fukuyama wrote his essay “The End of History”after the fall of the Soviet Union. What most people took away from his essay was this: The global battle over the best great system was over. Liberal democracy and market dynamics had won.

Well, China only got half that memo…

Now, many wonder how China’s rapidly emergent power and values will shape the world. And how the U.S. will respond. This hour, in our last broadcast from Shanghai, we look at the way ahead for the U.S. and China.

Guests:

Joining us in our studio, Sun Zhe is a professor at the Institute for International Studies and Director of the Center for U.S.-China relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has written extensively on comparative politics and U.S.-China relations, and is considered one of the leading scholars in the field of American Studies and U.S.-China Relations in China.

Also with us in Shanghai is Huang Renwei, professor of International Relations and Vice President of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He is also a top scholar on U.S.-China relations.

And joining us from Beijing is Dan Guttman, visiting professor at Tsinghua University School of Public Policy and Public Management. He has taught at five of China’s top universities. At Fudan University in Shanghai, he co-taught a course with Sun Zhe on Chinese-American relations.

Tibetan exiles protested the Beijing Olympics torch rally and demanded Tibet's independence in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, April 17, 2008. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

Go to On Point in Shanghai: China’s Week in the News

Every week we hit the news on Friday. This week we do it from China. Things look different when you’re sitting in Shanghai. The pope’s visit to America? Invisible. The Dalai Lama in the U.S.? Big. CNN’s Jack Cafferty and his offhand taunt toward China? Huge. You wouldn’t believe the rumpus.

We’ve got Olympic politics, a once hot market in trouble, a party boss going down, and Tibet all over…

The Olympic flame burned though India, on a very short run in New Delhi (watch it on YouTube here).

CNN’s Jack Cafferty delivers a broadside China’s way — “I think they’re basically the same set of goons and thugs they have been for the past fifty years.” He says he was only going after the Chinese government.

Beijing hears it otherwise. Says he slandered the nation, and demands satisfaction: “We solemnly request CNN Cafferty to take back his malicious remarks and apologize to the Chinese people.”

This hour, a week in the news China-style, live from Shanghai.

What’s your top story this week — in the US? In China? In the world where they meet? What’s your take on China and the U.S. over the Olympics, hot tempers, trade, the Dalai Lama?

Guests:

Joining us from Beijing is Yang Rui, bigtime host of the daily English-language current-affairs show “Dialogue,” on China’s government-run television network, CCTV. It’s one of the top-rated shows on CCTV’s eleven channels in China. He is careful to say he is here not as a representative of CCTV or the Chinese government, but as an informed Chinese citizen.

With us from Hong Kong is Willy Lo-Lap Lam. He’s a longtime, top Hong Kong journalist who’s worked in senior positions with the South China Morning Post, Asia Week, and the Asia-Pacific headquarters of CNN. He is currently a Senior Fellow in the China Program at The Jamestown Foundation, a group that informs U.S. policymakers about parts of the world with media constraints—like China.

And with us in our studio in Shanghai is James Areddy, Shanghai correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He is part of the WSJ team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for International Reporting on China.

A Chinese protester holds a banner reading No More Home during a protest in front of the Ministry of Construction in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

People’s Square, in the middle of Shanghai, is not like Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Shanghai’s square is huge — but green. It feels in April a bit like Central Park.

A few months ago something extraordinary—for China—happened here. Thousands of people marched into People’s Square to protest the extension of a high-speed Maglev train line through their neighborhood — and the protest worked. The project was dropped. In China, that’s news. Almost amazing. Because most dissenters in China face a much grimmer outcome… Harassment. Beatings. Jail. Worse.

The Chinese government doesn’t like to talk about it. But we will, with people who know the problem well. This hour, from Shanghai: Dissent in China.

Our panel of guests for this important hour are people who know the often hidden world of dissent and punishment well.

Guests:

Joining us in Shanghai is Jerome Cohen, one of the world’s top authorities on China’s legal system. He is a professor at New York University School of Law, a partner in the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and a senior fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He’s been following the law and dissent in China for more than 30 years.

Joining us from New York is Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, a group that promotes democratic reform in China. She is a professor of law emerita at City University of New York School of Law and a board member of Human Rights Watch/Asia.

And with us from Boston is journalist Leu Siew Ying. She worked for the South China Morning Post from 2002 to 2007 in the southern province of Guangdong, and covered local protests there. (See her prize-winning article “From Village Protest to National Flashpoint” [pdf].) She is currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, studying grassroots democracy in China.

A cyclist wears a face mask while cycling through polluted air in Lanzhou, in China's western Gansu Province on Dec. 5, 2006. (AP Photo)

The terrible story behind the story of China’s economic boom is the astounding environmental devastation that has come with it. China’s air, China’s rivers, even China’s seas, are deadly and dying. Half a billion Chinese do not have access to safe drinking water.

Problem is, the boom and the environmental crisis are two sides of the same coin — and growth-hungry China doesn’t want to let that coin go…

For three decades now, the number one goal of China has been hyper-growth and development. More towers — like those going up in Shanghai — more factories, more power plants, more coal. And in growth China has succeeded. But the price has been something approaching environmental catastrophe. Can China stop the spiral? It’s not clear.

In this hour, live from Shanghai, we’ll look at China’s environmental crisis, and talk to three people inside China trying to take their country in a new, greener direction.

Have you seen it? The environmental price of China’s hyper-growth? Can China and the world survive together another twenty years of success like this?

Guests:

Joining us first from Hong Kong is an extraordinary woman, Zhang Jingjing. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls her China’s Erin Brockovich. She’s director of litigation at the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims in Beijing. The Center is China’s first pro-bono environmental-aid office. In 2004, Zhang Jingjing won China’s first-ever public hearing for an environmental lawsuit, in a case against a Beijing state-owned power company. In 2006, she was part of a team of lawyers that won one of the biggest legal settlements in Chinese history for 1,600 villagers whose water had been poisoned by a chemical factory dumping chromium. She’s a hero to some, a pain to others.

Joining us in our Shanghai studio is Yang Fuqiang. He is vice president of the Energy Foundation, a group with offices in the US and China that funds initiatives to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy. He has been involved in energy and environmental issues for more than three decades.

From Beijing, Qi Ye, distinguished professor of Environmental Policy and Management at Tsinghua University School of Public Policy and Management. He was part of the international task force that in 2006 called for major changes in governance in China to address the country’s growing environmental problems.

An elderly man smokes near Shanghai's Oriental TV Tower on Sept. 10, 2004. (AP Photo)

The city of Shanghai is home to 18 million people. Beijing, 17 million. New York City, a mere 8 million. And the hi-rises in China keep going up.

To put our finger on the pulse of big city life in China, we’re turning to American-educated Chinese media mogul Hong Huang, a woman who’s been called “China’s Oprah.” She’s got a whole stable of magazines behind her. A TV show. Movie credits. She’s got a wildly popular blog called “Hong Huang is looking For Fun,” and a racy advice column called “Ask Me.”

Hong Huang pays a lot of attention to Chinese life and lifestyles today in the big city. And she speaks her mind. That’s good. We’ve got questions…

This hour, from Shanghai: Life in the big city, China-style, with media mogul Hong Huang.

This show was pre-recorded in Shanghai, and we’ll have the full audio here on this page later today, but you can join the conversation right now. Post a comment below, and tell us what you think. -Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guest:

Hong Huang, joining us from Beijing, is CEO of China Interactive Media Group, which publishes the fashion magazine iLook. She’s published and sold TimeOut Beijing and TimeOut Shanghai, and she launched the Chinese version of Seventeen magazine. She hosts an English-language TV talk show “Crossing Over,” and starred in the 2005 film “Perpetual Motion.” She’s the author of an autobiography, “My Abnormal Life as a Publisher.” Her mother, a famous Chinese beauty and diplomat, was interpreter for Mao Zedong.

Slideshows:

City Life: Shanghai
A collection of photos from Flickr showing city life in China, with an emphasis on our immediate environs in Shanghai.

City Life: Beijing
A collection of photos from Flickr showing life in Beijing.

Links:

My Ex-Husband and the Steam Bun
In a translation posted on Danwei.org, Hong Huang writes about the controversy surrounding her late husband’s reaction to a spoof made of his unsuccessful film “The Promise.”

TimeOut Shanghai
The international magazine TimeOut’s Shanghai edition online.

ShanghaiSmart
A webzine and online resource center for Shanghai that includes a list of upcoming events and an interactive map.

Google Video: 21 days in 2.37
3000 photos of 21 days in Shanghai, all in 2 minutes and 41 seconds.

Virtual Shanghai: Shanghai Urban Space in Time
Photos of Shanghai in the early 20th century before the massive development that turned it into the modern city it is today.

]]> http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/04/chinas-city-life/feed 0 http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/04/chinas-new-politics http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/04/chinas-new-politics#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:00:00 +0000 Wen Stephenson http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/04/chinas-new-politics/

The Chinese Communist Party is riding a tiger. It’s big, powerful, and deeply entrenched. It’s also hanging on to a booming nation where dog-eat-dog capitalism rules, rivers are poisoned, labor unrest and poverty are very real, and China’s boom itself creates challenges to the regime.

The face the Party shows the world is monolithic. But inside the Party walls, there’s a debate over China’s future, with implications for the whole world.

When China turned away from the old-fashioned communist economics of Chairman Mao, it turned with a vengeance — to what even The Wall Street Journal now calls a kind of naked, unfettered capitalism. That move brought hundreds of millions out of dollar-a-day poverty. It also wiped out much of a cradle-to-grave safety net, tore up China’s environment and produced a vast gap between China’s rich and poor. Now, behind that monolithic façade, a debate is underway within the Communist Party about how to respond, and talk of a “New Left” and “New Right” that can sound like China’s version of Republicans and Democrats.

This hour, live from Shanghai, we look at power and the Party in China.

Can you imagine China’s inside debate over where and how to move next? Can you imagine how China’s decision will effect you?

Guests:

Joining us in our Shanghai studio is Fang Xinghai, Director General of the Office for Financial Services in the Shanghai Metropolitan Government and former Deputy CEO of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In this hour, he will not speak as an official but give us his personal views.

Joining us from Beijing is Wang Hui. He is a key figure in a group of intellectuals sometimes described as China’s “New Left.” He was executive editor of China’s leading intellectual journal, Dushu, and is a professor of Chinese language and literature at Tsinghua University in Beijing. (Wang Hui was profiled in The New York Times Magazine in October 2006.)

And with us from Brussels is Mark Leonard, executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a European foreign-policy think tank based in London with offices in seven countries. He is the author of the new book “What Does China Think?“

A policeman films near the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square on March 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Once upon a time, in the Communist heyday of Mao Zedong, making movies in China was simple. You made the movies Mao wanted.

Now, the Chinese say they’re on the “sixth generation” of filmmakers since Mao’s time. And making movies is complicated. Filmmakers have to juggle official censorship and rampant piracy and new box office demands — and Chinese tastes and realities that are changing at light speed…

In the first decades after Chairman Mao, Chinese cinema made its international reputation with powerful, socially conscious art-house films like “Raise the Red Lantern” and “Farewell My Concubine.” Then came “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the huge box-office martial-arts adventure released in the U.S. in 2000, and suddenly costume blockbusters were all the rage.

Last year’s “Curse of the Golden Flower” was the most expensive movie ever made in China — all silk and kicks and palaces. But a new generation of films is making its mark, and we’re watching.

In this hour, we’re talking about sex, blood, money and politics — we’re going to the movies, in China.

This hour was pre-recorded in Shanghai, and we’ll have the full audio here on this page, but you can join the conversation right now. Post a comment below, and tell us what you think of Chinese films — and filmmaking in China — today. -Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Joining us in our studio in Shanghai is Chen Xihe, deputy dean in the School of Film, Television Art and Technology at Shanghai University.

And joining us from Vancouver is Ada Shen, an independent film producer and production consultant whose credits include “One Foot Off the Ground” and “The Painted Veil.” She has written for Daily Variety, the entertainment paper, and the Chinese media blog Danwei.org.

And also with us in Shanghai is Joy Le Li, a film buff who has been advising us behind the scenes on our trip here.

* * *

Here are some recent Chinese films we talked about in this hour:

Still Life 三峡好人 by Jia Zhangke (China: 2006)
Still Life recounts the parallel journey of two city dwellers that travel to a rural village which has been demolished to make way for the water from the Three Gorges Dam. These two pilgrims, a miner and a nurse, have returned to the village to look for their lost spouses. The film was shot in Fengjie, a real town demolished and now flooded to make way for the Dam, and looks at some of the devastation and displacement caused by the massive construction project.

Tuya’s Marriage 图雅的婚事 by Wang Quanan (Hong Kong: 2007)
Tuya lives in inner Mongolia with her disabled Husband Bater. Because of her husband’s disability, Tuya must make all the money to support her family. Then she is diagnosed with a debilitating condition. Unable to earn money for her family, she and her husband decide to divorce so that Tuya can find a man to take care of her and her children.

The Warlords 投名状 by Peter Chan (China: 2007)The Warlords, starring Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro, is set during the Taiping Rebelion in 19^th century China. With an ancient oath, three mercenaries become blood brothers, pledging to protect each other and die together, but imperial politics and the love of a woman tear them apart.

Curiosity Kills the Cat 好奇害死猫 by Zhang Yibai (China: 2006)
Curiosity Kills the Cat takes place in a city by the Yangzi River where there is a widening chasm between the elite rich and the poor. The story looks at the complex interplay between five characters living in the same apartment complex: a city woman, her husband, a manicure store owner, a security guard and a country girl. The film shifts its focus from character to character and jumps back and forth in time to give a textured look at life in modern China.

Lust, Caution 色，戒 by Ang Lee (Hong Kong: 2007)
During the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, a quiet university student Wong Chia Chi, is pulled into a plot to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Lee. She transforms herself into a glamorous socialite and successfully seduces Mr. Lee. But as the affair continues she increasingly loses her sense of self to the violence and passion of this new desperately physical relationship.

Lost in Beijing 苹果 by Li Yi (Hong Kong: 2007)
This urban melodrama looks at the uglier aspects of the new consumer culture of modern Beijing. Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) is a young foot masseuse married to the bad tempered window washer Ah-Kun. When Kun witnesses his wife raped by her boss, Mr. Lin (Tony Leung Ka Fai), he tries to attack and then blackmail the more powerful man. Then, when Pingguo discovers she is pregnant, her husband and her rapist see a neat solution to the mess: Mr. Lin will pay Kun for the baby if it is his.

Blind Mountain 盲山 by Li Yang (Hong Kong: 2007)
Naïve college student Bai Xuemei, played by Huang Lu, is tricked into traveling into the mountains of rural China where she was promised she would find medicinal herbs to sell for tuition money. When she reaches village, she realized she has been deceived and sold as a bride to a man in the village. Imprisoned in a dirty room, raped and beaten, Xuemei keeps trying to escape, refusing to accept her fate.

One Foot off the Ground 鸡犬不宁 by Chen Daming (China: 2006)
An old-fashioned Henan Opera group lives in an insular world of tradition, but when the troupe runs out of money, it is forced to disband. Unskilled in any trade except Henan opera, the members of the troupe each struggle make a living in modern society. Some find legitimate jobs, others find ways to survive on the black market.

A Chinese tourist takes a break in front of a Starbucks coffee shop at Yu Garden in Shanghai, China on July 15, 2002. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

If you think Wall Street’s been scary lately, take a look at Shanghai’s stock market. The Shanghai Composite Index is down 46 percent since last October. The Shanghai Daily headline again today: “China shares nosedive… panic selling reigns.”

It takes a strong stomach to invest and do business in China. But a lot of Americans are doing it. And there is money here.

This hour, live from Shanghai: American business players in China on what it takes to crack the People’s Republic…

Has your company planted its flag in China? If so, how’s it going? Are you worried your job is headed for China?

You can join the conversation — both on the air, by calling 1-800-423-8255 between 10am and 11am ET, and here online by posting a comment below. -Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

With us from Beijing is Tang Jun, President until 2004 of Microsoft China, which under him had the fastest sales growth rate among Microsoft’s 82 global subsidiaries. Until this month he was President of Shanda Entertainment, a $340-million publicly traded entertainment company. Today he was named CEO of New Huadu, a $6 billion conglomerate with business in retail, mining, real estate and finance. His pay package is estimated at one billion Chinese yuan — $140 million — a record compensation package in China.

Joining us in our studio in Shanghai is Tom Doctoroff, Northeast Asia Director for JWT, one of the largest US-based advertising and marketing firms. He worked at JWT in Hong Kong from 1994-1998, and has been based in Shanghai since 1998. Some of the company’s clients in China include Ford, Kraft and Avon. He is author of “Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer,” and blogs at The Huffington Post.

And with us from Boston is Malcolm Riddell, president and founder of the boutique investment bank RiddellTseng, which specializes in foreign direct investment in Chinese real estate. His clients have included MetLife, CIGNA and Fidelity Investments. He has lived and worked in China and Taiwan for more than 15 years. Before founding RiddellTseng in 1988, he was a CIA case officer in China Operations.

You can listen to the show live on WBUR starting at 10am ET. And we’ll have the full audio posted on this page later today.

Links:

How Microsoft Conquered China
Fortune magazine follows Bill Gates to China and describes his celebrity status there, how he attained it, and what it means about business in China.

FT.com: China
Business news on China from The Financial Times.

By the Book (Economist.com)
The Economist magazine offers recommendations for the best recent books on business in China.

Doing Business in China (World Bank Group)
The 2008 report from the World Bank Group’s DoingBusiness.com, which provides “objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement.”

The China Law Blog
China Law Blog focuses on law and business in China, but its topics range from China’s developing legal system to its society, culture, and current events. The site has won accolades from The ABA Journal and Business Week.

The Brand Preferences of Affluent Chinese (PDF)
Master Card’s detailed 2008 report on popular brands in China, with statistics and advice for Western companies.

China Briefing
The website of China Briefing magazine, based in Hong Kong, “covers legal, tax and operational issues from the position of the international investor.”

Chinese youths use computers at an Internet cafe in Beijing in June 2005. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

To be young and Chinese today — if you’re middle class or better, if you’re in a good school — is to be in a sweet spot by the standards of Chinese history. Young China is riding a boom, with booming dreams to match. And if we’re headed into the Chinese century, the hand that steers the wheel will be young Chinese students in college right now.

Anyone in China today under twenty wasn’t born when students protested and died under banners of democracy in Tiananmen Square. The word is, today’s young Chinese — college students — aren’t protestors. They’re China boosters, looking to a big, bright future.

In this hour, we ask how young China sees the world. We have three Chinese students joining us, standing in for a generation. That’s a tall order, but we’ll give it a try.

This hour was pre-recorded in Shanghai, and we’ll have the full audio posted here later today, but you can join the conversation right now by posting your comments below on this page. -Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

With us in our studio, Anita Wang is a sophomore at Fudan University in Shanghai, one of China’s top colleges, majoring in electrical engineering. She’s 20 years old and grew up in Shanghai.

Also joining us in the studio is Henry Fu. He’s in his third year of a five-year program at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. He is majoring in French and business, and hopes to eventually own his own business importing French wine and cheese to China. He also grew up in Shanghai and is 20 years old.

And joining us from NPR’s studio in Beijing is Zhang Ying, a second-year student in a two-year master’s program in Public Administration at Tsinghua University, also a super-elite school. She has interned for Citigroup, where she’s accepted a job in China when she graduates in July. She spent last summer in Atlanta in the Carter Center’s China Program. She grew up in TianJin, near Beijing, and is 24 years old.

And in our studio is Joy Le Li. She has worked as a producer and researcher in China for NBC News, PBS’s Frontline, and CNN, and she has been a producer for On Point here in Shanghai. Thirty-three years old, she grew up in Ningbo and now lives in Beijing, and has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yokohama National University in Japan and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs.

Links & Extras:

Slideshow: Young China
A collection of photos we gathered on Flickr.

“China’s Loyal Youth” (The New York Times, April 13, 2008)
Matthew Forney, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time, writes: “Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.”

“China’s Me Generation” (Time, July 26, 2007)
Time Magazine’s Simon Elegant looks at the life of a generation of Chinese youth “for whom prosperity and personal freedom haven’t required democracy.”

Growing Up in China: In the House of Oppression
Human Rights in China (HRIC) released a series of essays on how some youth have experienced a harsher side of life under China’s authoritarian system, including statistics and official policies on youth crime, a look at child prostitution in rural china, and an interview with the eight-year-old child of a Chinese dissident living in exile in America.

News Media, Blogging, and the Internet:

Danwei: Chinese Media, Advertising and Urban Life
An extensive and eclectic news aggregation site. The site’s overview of the media landscape in China includes both independent and state run publications and TV shows. They also have a timeline of the history of media in China.

Danwei’s List of English-Language Blogs
An index of individual “informative, well-written websites” on China, including blogs by China based journalists and blog recommendations by category.

China Digital Times
An aggregation of the latest news articles on China, including articles from western media and translated articles from the Chinese media.

Anti-CNN
An example of how Western media is perceived as biased by young Chinese, this site is a noisy protest against what it calls “the lies and distortions in the western media.”

ChinaBlogList.com
A search engine indexing over 400 English-language blogs on China.

Isaac Mao’s English Blog
Isaac Mao, one of the pioneers of blogging in China, writes in English about technology, politics, and human rights. The English section of Isaac’s blog represents only a small portion of his posts. You can also visit his more extensive Chinese language blog.

tudou.com – China’s YouTube (in Mandarin)
China’s biggest video sharing site, tudou.com, serves 30% more minutes of video per day than YouTube does. Watch some of what young China is watching.

“The Connection Has Been Reset,” by James Fallows
The Atlantic’s James Fallows recently reported on “The Great Firewall of China” and found that it’s “crude, slapdash, and surprisingly easy to breach” — but effective nonetheless. He explains why.

What the Chinese Think About Internet Censorship in China
A March 2008 study from the PEW Internet & American Life Project finds that “Most Chinese Say They Approve of Government Internet Control.”

A Chinese worker cleans the Beijing Olympic countdown digital clock on display outside the national museum near the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Thursday, March 6, 2008. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

It is 115 days to the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and everybody in China knows it.

Countdown clocks to August 8th are all over this country — on every front page and TV screen and electronic billboard. In Beijing, the preparations have been monumental. A city, in many ways, remade. And the challenges around the Olympics — monumental, too. The whole world is watching. China is watching.

The Beijing Olympics were planned as a reborn China’s super debut. No expense spared. Around the world, that debut has gotten complicated. But it’s a fascinating story inside China, too…

This hour, live from Shanghai: the Olympic Games, inside China, and a look at China’s Olympic debut.

You can join the conversation. Are you gearing up for the Games? Waving a flag? A sign? What does it say? What are your thoughts on China and the Olympics? Tell us what you think, right here, and post a comment below. -Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Jing Jun is a professor of sociology at Tsinghua University, best known for bringing attention to AIDS in China and for studying the impact on the communities resettled as a result of the Three Gorges Dam project.

Melinda Liu is Beijing bureau chief for Newsweek and writes the “Countdown to Beijing” blog. She opened Newsweek’s Beijing Bureau in 1980, and is president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.

And with us in our Shanghai studio we’ll have David Westendorff, founder of UrbanChina Partners, an urban governance and management consulting firm based in Shanghai, and a former research fellow at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in Geneva.

Links:

Beijing Stops Construction for Olympics (The New York Times, April 14, 2008)
“Chinese officials laid out a sweeping series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, shutter chemical plants and close down obsolete gas stations around Beijing, the capital, this summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics.”

When politics gets in the way of the Games (Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2008)
Columnist Clarence Page writes: “Whether you support torch-snatching as a pre-Olympic event or not, this international embarrassment could hardly be aimed at a more deserving target than China.”

Beijing Olympics 2008 – Official Site
A massive site with articles, photos, and video, as well as ticketing information and purchase options.

Satellite View of the National Stadium
Google’s satellite view of the National Stadium, the “Birds Nest,” China’s new 91,000-seat stadium under construction in early 2008.

China Rises: Party Games
This episode of “China Rises” — a four-part documentary produced by The New York Times, Discovery Times, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — looks at China’s experience of the Olympics through the eyes of five individuals: a candidate for mayor, a young member of the Communist Party, the artist behind the new national stadium, a 14-year-old Olympic gymnast, and a major Chinese airline CEO.

Slideshows:

Beijing Olympics
A collection of photos from Flickr showing the major venues for the August games, in various states of completion during the past year, and other Olympic images

Torch Demonstrations
The Olympic torch relay has attracted a wide variety of protesters and supporters. Here is a look at some of the signs they carried.

Videos:

This promotional video offers a tour of some of the new Olympic venues in Beijing:

And in this excerpt from a 2002 documentary, Chinese citizens celebrate wildly on the streets of Beijing in 2001 upon learning that China’s bid for the Olympics was successful:

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