16 June 2008

GPPi publishes study on the Beijing 2008 Olympics and the Communist Party of China

GPPi Research Associate Björn Conrad published a research paper on the Communist Party of China (CPC) seen through the veil of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The paper entitled, “Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas im Licht des Olympischen Feuers”, appeared in the 31st edition of the Bochum Yearbook of East Asian Studies, an annual publication issued by the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The yearbook’s current edition pays special attention to the political and economic implications of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Some of the findings presented in the paper have also been published in the journal “Internationale Politik” earlier this year.

The enthusiasm for the Beijing Olympics that has spread through the Chinese population reflects not only pride in the country’s achievements in recent years, but also the hope that China’s rise to economic prosperity and international standing continues into the future. In a time of grave domestic problems, the CPC is expected to use the Olympic Games as a platform to present its answers to the pressing challenges that threaten China’s continued success. The Games are a unique opportunity for the CPC to prove its ability to lead China into a flourishing future. Weakened by its crumbling legitimacy and struggling to secure its position of absolute power, the CPC is determined to seize this opportunity. Consequently, the CPC’s design for the Olympic Games 2008 is a blueprint for its vision of China’s future under the unbroken rule of the Communist Party.

The study analyzes the CPC’s design for the Olympics from three different angles. The first part focuses on the political structures of the Olympic preparations. It illustrates how the decision-making procedures highlight the successes of ongoing inner party reforms in terms of professionalization and accountability, but at the same time strongly reaffirms the absoluteness of the CPC’s political power and the unwavering validity of the PRC’s fundamental political principles. The second part examines the model of Olympic financing. In theory, the financing procedures display an unprecedented level of market-orientation and relinquishment of state control over economic processes. The implementation of the financing model, however, reveals undiminished political interventionism, entirely reversing the impression of a market-led financing model. The last part analyzes the CPC’s intentions regarding nationalistic sentiments stirred up by the Olympics. It distinguishes between two strongly interlinked types of nationalistic emotionality: inclusive nationalism that derives from the pride in past and present achievements and exclusive nationalism that feeds on the historic trauma of perceived inferiority and the resulting mistrust vis-à-vis foreign powers. Examinations of the CPC’s Olympic design clearly show that the political leadership does not plan to capitalize on confrontative nationalism, but will certainly make the somewhat risky attempt to strengthen and utilize the inclusive element of Chinese nationalistic sentiment.

In conclusion, the study argues that the Olympics are ultimately designed to prove that the political adaptations necessary to confront future challenges can be achieved without changing the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) fundamental political processes and structures of political power. As such, it identifies the underlying theme of the Beijing Olympics to be “conservation of power through controlled change.”

To view the Bochum Yearbook of East Asian Studies, please click here.

Click here for the contents page and introduction of this issue of the Bochum Yearbook of East Asian Studies.

For more information, please contact Björn Conrad.

Back to: News Archive