The Olympic ideal has just received an investment equal to a defense budget of the third largest country on earth thus giving it's mission statement sublime credibility.Estimates are that China has spent 40-billion-dollars on these Olympics. Now contrast that to the Chinese defense budget which is estimated at 44.7-billion-dollars. (The United States spent 481-billion-dollars on our defense budget.)
Obviously the Chinese felt that the 2008 Beijing Olympics are so important to their nation's image and morale that it was equal in importance to their ability to defend themselves.
Imagine if the United States spent 1/3-of-a-trillion dollars on a summer Olympics? The figure is so large that it is absurd and incomprehensible. Athens and London have and will spend perhaps 10% of what the Chinese paid. Obviously China wants to demonstrate they have arrived on the world stage and want to be considered credible, reliable and innovative. I suspect my feelings are shared by many now. The Chinese are also humble about it by outsourcing this endeavor to western firms.
The experience these 2008 athletes will have will be perhaps never be surpassed. For instance, If Michael Phelps blasts 8-golds, these Olympics will be the IOC's finest 16 days in the history of the movement. i.e. The great achievement of any Olympic athlete, the most medals garnered by an Olympian and the biggest, "swankiest," Olympics ever.
As for human rights, pollution and political rights: I know nothing about political science but perhaps these are the growing pains that a totalitarian society goes through as it makes its transitional to a democracy?
I am not happy about their environmental and human rights havoc but I am not happy about the United States environmental and human rights havoc as of late either.
Edited to fix grammar and add the last sentence: [8/18/09]
USA defense budge reference: US Dept. of Defense [Link]
China defense budget reference: Info-Wars: [Link]
4 comments:
Of course the bulk of China's Olympic spending was on infrastructure (like expanding their rapid transit system in Beijing) to bring it up to world-class status. Regarding defense spending China isn't controlled by corporations with cost plus contracts; and the Chinese have no real extra-territorial ambitions (arguments about Tibet and Taiwan freely accepted). The plain fact is that any nation armed with ballistic nuclear weapons is immunized from anything more than 'nuisance' attacks. Even pitiful North Korea can stand off superpower United States with just a handful of low grade nuclear weapons. The Chinese Communist Government has simply made a rational choice to spend its money on creating wealth rather than useless chunks of metal which sit around doing nothing (or worse, costing a lot more moving around).
What's your source for the $40 billion budget? This article suggest $2 billion. http://beijingolympic2008.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/beijing-revises-olympics-budget-up-to-us2-billion/
My reference is the BBC: Two weeks ago 20-million-pounds would have been 40-billion-dollars
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6184022.stm
Wikipedia - look under Venues:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics
Pravda:
http://english.pravda.ru/sports/games/06-08-2008/106003-beijing_olympics-0
The two billion dollar budget Steve refers is only for the cost of hosting the Games (read security). The particular article relied upon is very poorly written. The actual scope of the entire Olympics can be gained from the 600,000 jobs the Games the piece states has been estimated to have created every year since construction commenced in 2001. In another example of the prodigous spending involved an estimated one hundred million dollars was spent just to produce the opening and closing ceremonies. Two billion is clearly not enough. Tony is right about the cost of these Beijing Games.
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