A Great Call For China
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday August 11, 2008
Five words sent Beijing into a frenzy of celebrations, writes Anne Fawcett.
And the winner is . . . Beijing. When those words were uttered by the outgoing International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch at a lavish function in Moscow, thousands of happy Chinese converged on Tiananmen Square. It was after 10 o'clock at night in the Chinese capital, but no one was sleeping as firecrackers erupted in a loud celebration.Over at Beijing's Millenium Monument an invitation-only crowd of 10,000 watched the announcement live as it was beamed on a large screen.They spontaneously started to chant "Long Live Beijing".For the Chinese the announcement was long anticipated. They had held their breath back in 1993 when Beijing was hot favourite to host the 2000 Olympic Games. But Sydney beat Beijing by two votes. This time they feared the international community might be swayed by last minute political lobbying highlighting the country's human rights record and prominent Tibetan protests. The anti-Beijing push was led by international agencies such as Amnesty International, and political entities such as the European Parliament and parts of the United States Congress.But this time, Beijing won the right to host the Games with an overwhelming majority.Unusually, Beijing won in the second round of voting, having secured 56 votes and an absolute majority. Rival bid cities were Toronto (22 votes) Paris (18) and Istanbul (nine). Osaka which attracted just six votes was eliminated in the first round.The victory was underpinned by years of careful lobbying of the 119 voting IOC members by Beijing Olympic bid officials. Just two years earlier, the IOC had been engulfed in a bribery scandal that rocked the foundations of the Olympic movement and new rules were introduced to ensure propriety of the lobbying and to reduce the cost of the bid campaigns. As part of the new rules, the IOC analysed the technical merits of all of the bidding cities then ousted those that didn't come up to scratch. The cities to miss out were Bangkok, Cairo, Havana, Kuala Lumpur and Seville. Australia was very supportive of Beijing's bid, which cost an estimated $40 million. High-profile athletes such as Cathy Freeman and Australian companies such as Telstra and BHP Billiton were involved in supporting the bid.Politically, Beijing's most prominent supporter was Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who said the bid win was "a very important step in the evolution of China's relationship with the world".The Chinese had swayed the votes by promising the Olympic Games would open up China to the rest of the world. Beijing bidders promised to inject more than $35 billion into rebuilding infrastructure, tackling its pollution and environmental problems and building 20 sporting venues in the north of the city.The biggest influence for IOC members was being mindful they would make an impact on world history by staging the Olympic Games just as China emerges as a global power. Beijing is to be China's coming-of-age party.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald