Experts Answered Questions on China's Olympic Moment

And he was asking two things: one, do you all think China has made real progress in human rights and well-being in the last five years, or was it just, whatever they did just a token gesture for the Olympics?

And then the second, harder question to answer is, is it hard to quantify the Western notion of human rights in a non-Western political culture? Orville?

ORVILLE SCHELL: Well, I mean, listen, it's - I'm not sure I buy this business about Asian values not being consonant with human rights values, which, after all, are not American; they're not European; they're not Russian. I mean, they are universal. And there is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights under the U.N. aegis. And I think it's a bit disingenuous to sort of try to say certain cultures, certain traditions get it and certain don't. So I would say that that's the first point.

Has China made real progress? I mean, I think it's very hard to sort of understand China as sort of going irrevocably in just one direction or another. And usually what's happening is it's going in two and often opposite directions at the same time, which means that it can be getting better and getting worse or making progress and making retrograde motion at the same time. And I think this is because it is in a state of such incredibly dynamic and uncertain transition.

So I think actually there is a lot of progress in certain ways. It's very commonly said that in private life, there's a much greater circumference of freedom. But on the other hand, there are certain areas where things are demonstrably much tighter than they were, let's say, in the late '80s, which in many ways was a halcyon period of openness and intellectual ferment and free expression and investigative journalism.

In that sense, I think we'd have to say it has really clamped down and, in certain ways, I think the legal system, when applied to offenses that have political significance, is tighter than it was, you know, 25 years ago.

MARGARET WARNER: Victor?

VICTOR CHA: On the progress over the last five years in terms of human rights, you know, it's - I mean, it's difficult to say what's the metric for that. There clearly were some things that they've done in terms of putting the notion of human rights actually into the party constitution, which was a big step for them. They sort of heralded it as a big step.

But a lot of those - sort of press access and openness and things that were offered to the international media as a part of the preparations for the games were not opened and offered to the domestic media. So there hasn't been progress in that sense. So it really is, as Orville said, there really is a bit of a mixed bag.

On the question of international human rights and whether Western or Asian versions, I would tend to agree that when we think of human rights and sort of the inherent dignity of every individual, that is not something that is culture-specific or nation-state specific; it is universal.

And if you actually look at the Olympic charter, you know, the charter talks about a sense of openness, of equality, individual effort, and fair play and fair rules that are very - in some senses, very difficult for the way the Chinese view their own domestic system.

So this is one of the interesting dynamics as we watch the Olympics and as we've watched the Olympics where past illiberal regimes have hosted them how they sort of embrace that Olympic ideal even though their own system, domestic system, doesn't reflect those ideals.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, a number of our viewers who wrote in, in fact, made a similar comment in the sense that, for instance, Kathy Xu who's from Kingston, Canada, said, you know, "that foreigners are seeing just the superficial side of life in China, that the regime, the life of the oppressed remains painfully hopeless. The regime has changed its faces many times, but the nature remains the same." Orville, you said something similar to that line on Friday evening. And she said, you know, "you can be dazzled by the dance and fireworks but, in fact, this is what Hitler did in '36."

Another viewer, someone who just called himself James, said, you know, "the former Soviet Union hosted the Olympics and we see how the country has evolved politically and economically. What's the basis for different expectations with China?" And then a third one, Roger Romanelli from Chicago, said, essentially, by giving [China] the Olympics, we're condoning the, quote, "repression." "We had a chance to force change in China with no Olympics waiting until real progress was made."

ORVILLE SCHELL: Well, you never quite know which way things will turn. In the case of Korea, there was a very marked and I think quite hopeful change towards greater democratization as a result of demonstrations which preceded the opening of the games and, indeed, it was a kind of a threshold of a new increment of democracy in Korea.

I think this didn't happen in China, sadly, partially for two reasons: one, even though the whole demonstrations of 1989, I think, were fully justified and not unreasonable in what they were asking for, the final effect of the crackdown and the massacre was, I think, very untoward and very unhelpful in terms of China's ultimate reform.

And here's a case where right doesn't actually turn out to be the most sort of helpful strategy in terms of promoting most constructive forces within China. And then, sadly, I think also the demonstrations before the Olympic Games over the Tibetans, over the torch, and the whole Tibet question, while, you know, justified, nobody did anything wrong, the Tibetans have an actual real grievance that they have every right to express.

However, the effect of those demonstrations, I think, was to make China retract.

And this has been a dynamic we've seen again and again and again: Morally justifiably demonstrations lead to a kind of a very unconstructive effect within the internal dynamics of China.

So are we coddling dictators here by giving China the games? Well, life is ambiguity. You don't quite know which way it's going to go and I think, on balance, it was best that the Chinese had the games because, in actuality, what they really crave is respect. They sometimes don't quite do the right thing and get the maximum amount of it, but I think in this case they will, and I do hope that it will make them a little less sensitive to criticism and feel a little bit more a part of the sort of the whole larger world order.

MARGARET WARNER: Victor, how do you see this?

VICTOR CHA: Well, I mean, I think, obviously, the argument against giving them the games was this notion of, you're coddling dictators; you're validating the leadership.

But you know, we have to remember that China bid once before for these Olympics. You know, they bid in I believe for the 2000 games. The decision for that was made in 1993; the final two countries were Beijing and Sydney and even though there were some on the IOC, even the head of the IOC, that wanted the games to go to Beijing, everybody just remembered Tiananmen Square still too well and, in the end, Sydney won that bid much to Beijing's disappointment.

So I think they do - you know, this is not simply a case where everybody is just sort of seeking to please Beijing and therefore giving them the games and forgetting about all of the problems they have; the Chinese have been through this once before and they failed.

The other thing, you know, this whole question of, who gets the better end of the deal at the end of this? Do the Chinese get the better end of the deal or does the world? You know, it's very difficult to answer that question, but, again, we have to remember, I think, that a country like China, when they go through the process of basically opening up to the world for these two-and-a-half weeks and allowing the sort of scrutiny that they do, that, I think, is going to have a lasting impact both on international expectations and domestic expectations.

And I'm of the view that China will not be the same country after these games. Certainly, it's not going to make the liberalization transition and democratic transition that South Korea made in 1987 and '88, but there is still something about exposing this concept of Olympism and the Olympics to 1.3 billion people that is bound to have some sort of effect on the regime.

Some people may think it will cause the regime to retract more. But I think given the imperative that the Beijing leadership and the CCP leadership faces to try to legitimize their place within the Chinese state and to the world, that will require them to be more responsible and more open rather than less so.

Every country, of course, tries to put its best face on at a time like this. But do you think these incidents tell us anything more profound about China, its politics, or its culture?

ORVILLE SCHELL: A very interesting question. You know, I think what these things say to me is how much China wants to be respected and that they will leave no stone unturned.

They will even sort of rouge things up and manipulate things because it is so monumentally important that they be perceived well and that they project a positive image. Now, this isn't the first time China has done that. There is obviously a long history of sort of Potemkin villages and propaganda.

But I do think it does suggest that there is a - I mean, I can't imagine the games in London - the next summer games - coming anywhere near what they've done in Beijing. Why? Because it really isn't that important to the British people that everybody change their image of them. So I think this does bespeak in China's case of a real yearning to be perceived in a different way.

And in many ways, the reality has changed and they deserve to be perceived in a different way. But in very important other ways, of course, the system still has not changed. And that's sort of the x-ray you want to make at any moment of China. What has changed? And much has changed. And what hasn't changed? But that creates within China itself, I think, a yearning to be perceived as new, as modern, as powerful, as sort of flawless and respected.

But that says something about the country that it actually has a lot of - it lacks a certain confidence; it lacks a certain kind of self-belief. And this, I hope, will be in some sense ameliorated by the success of the games.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying it's more political? It has to do with China today rather than being cultural?

ORVILLE SCHELL: I do think it has a lot to do with China feeling that for so long it was helpless to sort of make itself equal, to defend itself, to be and to feel itself as a great power. Now it's edging up to that status.

But it still has lots of self-doubt and some reason for those self-doubts, I might add. So that puts tremendous pressure on it to kind of reorder things, to do the lip-syncing, to do the computer graphics, to make it look absolutely flawless so nobody can criticize and everybody will be impressed.

MARGARET WARNER: Were you surprised at these little incidents, Victor Cha?

VICTOR CHA: Actually I wasn't because, having sort of looked at the way the games have affected different countries, particularly in Asia, it's not at all unusual, I think, that Beijing sought to cross every last T and dot every last I to ensure that the opening ceremonies and games overall would come off as a picture-perfect production.

And you know, I think the things that Orville speaks to about this desire to show confidence, but at the same time beneath that confidence, if you scratch a little bit there's a great deal of insecurity, is something that is certainly a part of China, but it's been a part of, I think, every Asian city that has hosted these Summer Games. And there have only been three - you know, Tokyo in '64, Seoul in '88, and Beijing in 2008.

In each case, these countries were facing similar sorts of attempts to prove to the world that they were a major player in the international system, that they were responsible, that they were stakeholders, that they were modern, that they were growing at an incredible pace and should be treated as every major power in the West likes to be treated.

And I think for this reason, not only in Beijing but also in Tokyo, you saw every last detail being covered to ensure that the games would go well.

One example in Tokyo was they were very concerned that the beds in the hotels would not be large enough for Western frames. They were expecting lots of tourists. So they went to the bedmakers in the country to ask them to make longer beds and none of them had made long beds before. So they had a hotel bed crisis in Tokyo in 1963. And they had to commission the making of special larger beds for Western frames.

Same thing in Seoul. I mean, in the case of Seoul, you had this situation where - this wasn't the Olympics - this was prior to the World Cup when they hosted the World Cup the first time in Asia - there were a great deal of concerns that Westerners would walk into public toilet facilities and be shocked by the Asian-style squat toilets rather than the Western-style toilets. So they went and did a complete toilet revolution in Korea and fixed every single toilet so it would be a Western-style toilet.

So it's these sorts of details that everything from the multimillion-dollar stadiums to replacing beds and toilets that a lot of these Asian cities go through in the process of trying to prove to the world that they are modern and industrialized.

MARGARET WARNER: First tier. This is an interesting question from Steven Schmidt of Provo, Utah. And he picks up on something I noticed when I was in China just before the games. He says he speaks Chinese; he volunteered for his church in Taiwan. And he said, based on his conversations, he said, "it's interesting to realize the different perspective that Chinese people have toward their own government" compared to the way Americans - he's saying toward the Chinese government; but I also think Americans toward their own government. And he said, "in fact, it seemed to me from the conversation that most Chinese people support and agree with many of the decisions the Chinese government makes."

And just to continue that, I mean, I notice in talking to students there, even if they might in the abstract say they believed something, they always seemed very supportive of their own government's decisions. And they kept saying how grateful they were to this government. What do you think - whereas Americans don't have any problem criticizing their own government; they don't think it means you're unpatriotic. What do you think explains that difference?

ORVILLE SCHELL: Well, here I do think there is a very different political tradition. You know, we really institutionalized the honorability - we don't always honor it - of dissent; whereas I think China has never really had a prolonged experience of democratic governance and democracy.

There has been much discussion over the last century, but it's always been somewhat epiphenomenal. And indeed, most leaders throughout the 20^th century in China saw democracy not so much as an end in itself but as precisely a means to the end of what I mentioned earlier: wealth and power. They saw it as a way of acquiring the sort of Promethean energy and dynamism of the West, not as something that in itself was a kind of worth instituting simply because all men are created with certain inalienable rights.

And so, there's a very different sort of perspective, I think, about democracy and about its role. And it has created a society, which under its Confucian guise and then under its Marxist/Leninist guise didn't really emphasize the ability of people to speak out, be protected, and still be considered good Chinese and patriotic. So dissent very quickly, very easily gets associated with being unpatriotic and not loving your country.

VICTOR CHA: Well, I mean, I think part of it is not very different from the West in the sense that when Americans are abroad, they tend to be more defensive and supportive of their country than when they are at home.

You know, if a foreigner asks someone about their country, they tend to try to put the best face forward, I think, oftentimes. And in particular, if you take this time series of this run-up to the games, I think there is obviously going to be a great deal more support for the country and what it's trying to do than in another period.

But to me, I think - and I hate to keep jumping to the future - but the thing to me that will be really interesting to watch will be, there's no denying that these games and the medal performances of the Chinese athletes will create all of this patriotism and nationalism and pride among the Chinese people, which in the short term may be very supportive of the state, of the party, everything that the government provides to the people. I think there's no denying that that will be out there. And it may even be arrogant at times. You know, the Chinese may even be arrogant about it at times.

But the interesting question will be, you know, down the road, you've always had the variable of nationalism in China. But it will be greatly accentuated after these games. And what direction that takes in the future really remains an open question because, on the one hand, it will be very supportive of the government and what they've done with the Olympics.

But that can just as easily turn against the government at another point in the future if the next earthquake is handled very poorly or if the next SARS crisis is not handled well, as the last one was not handled well by the Chinese government.

So it will be interesting to watch the reaction of the Chinese people not directly after the games but to watch it after time and how it might change.

ORVILLE SCHELL: Yeah, that's - I think Victor makes a good point. And of course, just parenthetically, one should say that much of the future reaction of the people of China towards their government will depend on the economic situation. I mean, that is sort of the underlying prime moving principle. And these things can turn very, very quickly. What is patriotism today can turn into criticism tomorrow. And it's very, very sort of mutable.

So I think the Chinese government has succeeded in sort of ratcheting itself up a few big steps with the games here. But nothing in China is very durable. And there's an awful lot of moving parts. And if one of them sort of goes out of kilter, the whole equation can change.

MARGARET WARNER: So that leads very well, I think, into this final question I'd like to ask you. It came from Sam Bertie in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And Victor Cha, I'll start with you. He asks, "Where will a challenge to the autocracy of the Communist Party in China come from? Will it be from outside the party? If so, where? Or from within? Or will it come at all?" He also wants you to guess about the timeframe in which it will happen.

But I'd like you to connect the Olympics to that, whether you think there is any connection as well.

VICTOR CHA: Yeah, well, I don't - I mean, I don't think the challenge will come from the outside. You know, if anything, it will come from inside. And it will - you know, again, I think that what the Olympics creates - in addition to all the buildings and all of the greenbelts and everything else in Beijing, what it will create is a heightened sense of nationalism and national identity among the Chinese people that will initially be extremely positive and proactive in terms of the government, the party, the whole state structure and everything that it's done.

But that is variable. It can change. And at some point in the future, it could go against the government for things that it doesn't like about what they're doing or the economic problems that the country will face.

You know, a lot of these Olympic cities after the games have suffered huge slowdowns in terms of the economy because of all of the public borrowing, things that took place. And that will be the variable for change more than anything that comes from the outside.

In terms of timeframe, you know, it's very difficult to say when or how that happens. You would need - history has shown that you need the right confluence of factors for democratic transitions like in the case of South Korea or Taiwan or other places to take place. And you can't predict what those might be.

But this whole issue of Chinese patriotism, Chinese nationalism as a result of these games - to use a Chinese metaphor - this is a tiger. And the CCP leadership is going to ride the back of this tiger through the games and use it to deflect any criticism after the Olympics about how China has not changed its human rights policies and things of that nature. And it will probably work initially. But in the longer term, you know, that tiger can go in a very different direction. And I don't think that the sense of national identity, the heightened sense of national identity, will ever dissipate after the games. If anything, it will just grow stronger.

MARGARET WARNER: Orville Schell, so do you think this - the Communist Party itself, that that is where this change will come from or from outside the party?

ORVILLE SCHELL: Well, you know, if we have no example that I can think of, of a Communist Party having undergone what the Communist Party in China does not like to countenance; the idea of peaceful evolution, in other words sort of evolving itself possibly even out of business in the long run.

MARGARET WARNER: You don't think the Soviet Union is an example?

ORVILLE SCHELL: Well, no, I mean, they had a fundamental breakdown and then they had to reconstruct.

But China has managed to align itself through some very, very sort of stressful transitions but still keep its old structure, one-party rule under the aegis of the Chinese Communist Party. Will it be able to continue to do that? Who knows; impossible to predict. But I do think that, you know, Victor speaks about China riding on a tiger. And "chi hunan cha" (ph), the Chinese say, "Once you get on the back of a tiger, it's hard to get off." But the reality is that China is on about 20 tigers all at the same time.

And you know, each one of them, if you look at it, is a pretty terrifying challenge. So again, I think change will probably have to come from inside. It will depend largely, I think, in the next round on economics.

In terms of outside pressure, I think, you know, the school of tough love is probably the best sort of foreign policy that we could adopt. And in this regard, I have to say, not being an enormous fan of many of George Bush's policies, I think he's done pretty well in China. I mean, I think he's been pretty plain spoken. But he's kept a relationship. I think he's not been insulting. That never works well with Chinese to lose face, to publicly humiliate them. And yet, I think, you know, he has not avoided the tough issues.

So I think that there is a kind of good relationship that combines both criticism and embrace that needs to be cultivated a little further in the next administration, whoever ends up as president.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, on that note, that's all the time we have for this week's Insider Forum. And I want to thank you both, Victor Cha of Georgetown University and Orville Schell of the Asia Society. And thanks to all our viewers and online visitors who submitted questions.

And thanks for listening. Until next time, I'm Margaret Warner.