One World One Dream

“One World One Dream” is a phrase that’s echoing around Beijing right now as it prepares for the 2008 Olympics.  Although I have not been up to the Olympic site itself the preparations can be seen everywhere you look.  From shiny fresh tarmac on numerous new roads to the construction of 86km of new subway lines Beijing is a city that’s dragging itself out of communist dilapidation to into the 21st century. 

Walk around the streets of this place and it’s easy to feel like you’re in any Western city. Of course there are some quirks and there is the constant challenge when no one speaks English, but Beijing has transformed itself into a place that feels strangely homely.  There’s everything you’d expect of a modern city; hotels, restaurants, entertainment and bars.  Traffic on the roads is relatively civilised and there are even pavements at the side of the street!  Getting around is quite easy with plenty of cheap taxis readily available and a simple to use subway system that is rapidly expanding.

Although Beijing has been steadily improving over the past decade even before winning the Olympics, the past few years have seen a rapid acceleration in progress.  The authorities appear to be putting in 100% to ensure that everything is ready in time for next year.  Preparations appear to be going very well and the city I see today is quite different to the one I witnessed 9 years ago during my last visit.  Economic prosperity has definitely had a big impact on the every day lives of the millions of people that live here.  For example when I was last here people strived to own a bicycle but now they now posses cars and trucks.  The Olympics has played a big part of this change by creating vast numbers of new jobs attracting migrant workers from all over the country hoping to improve their quality of life too.

However, that has come at a cost.  It is difficult to get accurate figures due to the tight control of the media but there has been at least one major accident so far.  Just last week 6 men working on one of the new subway lines just a few hundred meters away from my hotel were killed when the tunnel collapsed around them.  The contractor in charge of the site where the incident occurred acted rather strangely when it happened.  Instead of calling for help he decided the best thing to do was seal off the site and confiscate the mobile phones of all his workers so they couldn’t spread the word.  Whether it was corruption, fear of the consequences or simply pure incompetence the delay in calling for help meant rescue efforts didn’t start until 8 hours later and all 6 died.  Is that an acceptable price to pay in return for over pushing development in order to get everything completed in time for the Olympics? 

The construction industry isn’t the only area that has benefited from huge Olympic driven investment. Cash has been poured into all aspects of Beijing from stream-lining the immigration process to improving the banking industry, and even into mundane things such as replacing over 6,300 road signs correcting amusing English mistranslations and creating hundreds of tacky new Olympic souvenir shops.  In fact, the Chinese authorities claim to be well ahead of plan and hope to have everything completed long before tourists start arriving next year.

One has to wonder whether London is really setting itself up to equally seize the opportunity that has been bestowed to it with the 2012 Olympic Games.  True there has been huge investment in the London Underground already but what else is there to show for it so far?  Everyone in Beijing can see the clear benefits that are coming from their Olympic games and believe the investment is worth while in both the short and long term.  Can Londoners really say the same thing?  I’m not sure that I can just yet, but who knows, perhaps the situation will improve over the coming years. 

There is definitely huge potential waiting to be exploited by the British capital.  Perhaps if the authorities take note and learn from the Chinese perhaps London too can be dragged into the 21st century.  So let us all cross our fingers and hope that London 2012 turns out to be just slightly more successful than the last big venture undertaken in the capital - the Millennium Dome

This entry was posted on 31/03/2007 at 08:45 pm and is filed under Sights and sounds of China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.