Aug 7, 2009, 10:57 GMT
Beijing - As the Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium dusts off its feathers for the one-year anniversary of the Olympics Saturday, a strange sense of deja vu has settled on the city.
While the paint fades on leftover Olympic signs and logos, a grey smog has stubbornly refused to lift, and the authorities are again tightening controls over voices of dissent.
In 2001, when it won the Olympic bid, Beijing was a city in desperate need of an upgrade, and China was a country in need of a new international image. The government subsequently spent 40 billion dollars on infrastructure, including new subway lines, roads and cleaning up the city's air, according to the National Audit Office, and an additional 2.84 billion dollars on Olympic venues.
A year after the big event, and the Beijing environmental protection administration insists that the air has stayed cleaner, with the city on track to meet its 2009 target of 260 'blue sky' days. 'The government has paid lots of attention to environmental issues, and traffic control measure have played a key role,' Chen Zhongming, from the Peking University College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, told German Press Agency dpa.
Restrictions on cars, which were put in place for the Olympics, have remained, and last month further limits were placed on vehicles from outside Beijing entering the city.
But depending on which data you believe, Beijing's air on any given day can be just 'slightly polluted', or 'hazardous' to human health.
While the lungs of Beijing's residents are still struggling with the pollution, the government is using the Olympics anniversary to promote health. August 8 has been declared 'National Fitness Day', and to mark the occasion there will be a number of sporting activities at Beijing's Olympic Green, the largest of which will be the Italian Super Cup final between Inter Milan and Lazio at the Bird's Nest stadium.
This will be the first sporting event at the stadium since the close of the Paralympics, and comes amid growing concerns about the use and upkeep of Olympic venues. In the first five months of the year, the Bird's Nest attracted 3.5 million visitors, bringing in 44.1 million dollars, according to a report by the Beijing Times. The 91,000 seat stadium costs at least 30 million dollars annually to maintain, the report said, and debate continues over how to best cover the cost.
Plans by the operator to sell off the venue's naming rights, which reportedly could have brought in 300 million dollars, were halted due to public concern that the stadium's status as a national icon would be lowered by commercialism, state-run newspaper, the Global Times, reported in June.
The Bird's Nest is now up there with the Great Wall and the Forbidden City in the national psyche, according to Greg Groggel, an American who has studied the legacy of the Games in six Olympic cities.
An 'autonomous management bureau is required to generate the best social, economic, environmental, and financial returns from the government's investment,' says Groggel, echoing sentiment found in a recent report by the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Olympics venues aside, some say a lasting legacy of the Beijing Games is the way it has promoted tolerance and communication between the Chinese public and people from other countries.
'The Olympics was a chance for Chinese and foreigners to come into close contact. Perhaps both sides were nervous, especially the average Chinese person,' said Luo Qing, from the Communications University of China, who conducts research into China's national image.
Luo believes the Olympics promoted a new openness amongst Chinese people and within the government.
'Now people at all levels feel stronger and are more tolerant. The government is also looking to change,' she said in a phone interview.
But while the physical and psychological landscapes of Beijing may be significantly different, concerns persist about the government's pledge to improve human rights, a key part of its Olympic bid.
'The bottom line is it was a huge missed opportunity, that is the legacy of the Games in regards to human rights,' Phelim Kine, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told dpa on Friday.
Kine said there's been a triumph of form over substance with 'no real let up in Chinese Government's crackdown on civil society, freedom of association, and freedom of expression.'
The government's tough approach to voices of dissent has continued in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including twenty years since the Tiananmen crackdown. The country's legal community has been the most recent target, with human rights groups condemning the detention of legal scholar, Xu Zhiyong, and the barring of more than 50 lawyers from practice.
As the October 1st anniversary of 60 years of the People's Republic approaches, there's a sense of deja vu. Reminiscent of the lead-up to the Games, the government has again toughened visa restrictions for foreigners, tightened controls on the internet, and made it clear that petitioners seeking a hearing are not welcome in the capital.
While the Olympic anniversary celebrations are a chance to reflect on how much the landscape and people of Beijing and China have changed, the government's renewed rhetoric about maintaining 'social harmony and stability' are a sign that some things are still very much the same.
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