Chinese Superpower? Maybe, maybe not.

July 28, 2008 3:30 PM

The algae problem was taken care of. But the smog is the worst it's been in several months. All kidding aside, is China the next world superpower? Maybe, maybe not.

When my family and I left China in 2004, we moved to Los Angeles, the smog capital of the United States. No sooner had we set foot in southern California than my son's asthma attacks and chronic chest infections -- so worryingly frequent in Beijing -- stopped. When people asked me why we'd moved to L.A., I started joking, "For the air."

China's environmental woes are no joke. This year, China will surpass the United States as the world's No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases. It continues to be the largest depleter of the ozone layer. And it's the largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean. But in the accepted China narrative, the country's environmental problems will merely mean a few breathing complications for the odd sprinter at the Beijing games. In fact, they could block the country's rise.

posted by Cool Papa Bell (68 comments total)

I was given a fantastic book by a former coworker that talked about the history of viewing China as the "next big thing". Apparently the view that China is the next major export market/world superpower goes back to the 1700's or so. I gotta go find that book again.
posted by GuyZero at 3:43 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

An interesting article and one I'm not remotely qualified to dispute, so I'll ask these questions:
Why can't China become a world superpower while completely ignoring their environment?
Why can't China become a world superpower while neglecting the care of their elderly?
If you have a greater GDP than any other country, and hence enormous influence on the world economy, why does it matter what your population is? If Australia had twice the GDP per population of the US, while still having a small population, no one would be arguing we were an economic superpower, so why would the reverse be true?
If China does the majority of the world's manufacturing and makes massive amounts of money out of it, does it really matter where the global corporations that "own" all this have their nominal headquarters? What's stopping all of them moving their headquarters to China at the drop of a hat if the tax or legal regimes there become more attractive than where they are now? What's more important to a nation, dozens of management jobs our thousands of working class jobs?

Basically, it seems to me that some, if not all, of his points won't actually prevent China from becoming a superpower.
posted by markr at 3:58 PM on July 28, 2008

The pictures in the "But the smog" link are pretty scary. We had a few days that looked like that here (San Jose, CA) but it was because there were forrest fires in the surrounding hills. To think that people have to live in it, much less perform at an olympic level, is a sad thought, indeed. I wonder how many urban Chinese have asthma or something similar.
posted by doctor_negative at 4:01 PM on July 28, 2008

Because of the Communist Party's notorious one-child-per-family policy, the average number of children born to a Chinese woman has dropped from 5.8 in the 1970s to 1.8 today -- below the rate of 2.1 that would keep the population stable.

5.8 children per woman? Holy schnikes! Apparently China wasn't just a factory for cheap manufactured goods. Maybe this makes more sense in the context of an agricultural society, but 5.8 is a lot of units of animated carbon birthed per mother.
posted by clearly at 4:01 PM on July 28, 2008

I feel like western journalist writing about China need to take greater care in being aware of their ethnocentrism.

For example:

Pollution today in Beijing was at its worst for a month, but officials say air quality will be good by the time the Olympics start on August 8


Should be:

Pollution today in Beijing was at its worst for a month, and officials say air quality will be good by the time the Olympics start on August 8

posted by dobie at 4:01 PM on July 28, 2008

Why can't China become a world superpower while completely ignoring their environment?

Because no one will want to live there or do business there.

Why can't China become a world superpower while neglecting the care of their elderly?

Because while the state may neglect their elderly, their families won't, and will attempt to subvert state controls or retard their own economic growth in order to care for their families on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, people will seek to leave a country if they don't perceive an economic benefit to stay.

If you have a greater GDP than any other country, and hence enormous influence on the world economy, why does it matter what your population is?

It doesn't, but you won't ever get there in the long term without a healthy, growing economy.

If Australia had twice the GDP per population of the US, while still having a small population, no one would be arguing we were an economic superpower, so why would the reverse be true?

I don't follow, sorry.

If China does the majority of the world's manufacturing and makes massive amounts of money out of it, does it really matter where the global corporations that "own" all this have their nominal headquarters?

If profits are leaving the country, then yes. See, India under British rule.

What's stopping all of them moving their headquarters to China at the drop of a hat if the tax or legal regimes there become more attractive than where they are now?

Nothing. But see the economic and environmental woes above, which also factor into the equation.

What's more important to a nation, dozens of management jobs our thousands of working class jobs?

Neither. What's really important is a healthy mix of both.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:08 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Their fantastic stadium really depresses me. At a glance it's snazzy, but if you look closer it seems to be some very large, friendly benign object completely strapped to the ground like Gulliver.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 4:18 PM on July 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Man, just imagine the pollution after the Olympics. With all the closed factories open and all the cars back on the road.
posted by delmoi at 4:19 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

All kidding aside, is China the next world superpower? Maybe, maybe not.

Neither. The next "center" of gravitation might be Eurasia.

And one of the best books about how the future might look like that I have read recently is:

After the empire

I might one day do a FPP about it. Or maybe not. It's too much of a flamebait.
posted by yoyo_nyc at 4:21 PM on July 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Beijing manufactures its own scenery for Olympics (click for images)

BEIJING — Polluted Beijing is usually shrouded in gray, so for the Olympics, Beijing city officials have tried to add some color.

They have taken a dusty metropolis with thousands of cranes hovering over construction sites and sought to create an idealized Beijing. Enormous murals in shades of blue and green, many showing off towering palm trees and blue skies, rise like Hollywood backdrops to hide the reality of the Chinese capital.

Beijing Olympics emblems are often used to hide unfinished construction projects. Some of the make-believe scenes are pastoral, showing a path wandering through a tangle of trees, or rolling green hills that suggest a quaint village lies just out of view. The murals typically hide a bare concrete wall, an ugly hole in the ground or a building site.

Feel like a game of golf? One mural guides the urban viewer down a lush, green fairway complete with sand bunkers...
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:26 PM on July 28, 2008

Fortunately, the Great Wall will contain their pollution and we will not feel its effects. China et al will continue to be the world's industrial base. Companies selling those China (and India) made products will flourish but feel no obligation to the nation state they began with since they become global corporations. The people in these manufacturing countries will get wealthier over a period of time and will become a market for selling the goods made. With a decline of manufacturing jobs in the US, the income level will go down as it goes up elsewhere, but the companies don't worry because the global market will be in excess of the (former) US market...of course China and India will have much poverty etc (and of course pollution as they get more and more industry and cars to drive about), and they will have many of the problems--aging, health etc that we see in their countries now and which we seem not to be addressing in the US...eventually, China will become what Russia was: a great power with its sphere of influence in Asia. the good news may well be that our interconnectedness of economies is such that the owning classes will not allow the political forces in each superpower to stage wars.
posted by Postroad at 4:33 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

If Australia had twice the GDP per population of the US, while still having a small population, no one would be arguing we were an economic superpower, so why would the reverse be true?

I don't follow, sorry.

One of his arguments is that it doesn't matter that China's GDP may overtake the US's because China has more people. He's saying that GDP per person is what is important. But if a small country had a higher GDP per person than the US nobody would say they were a superpower, because their total GDP would be low. Basically I'm saying that total GDP is more important. And the population of your country (when it comes to the power you wield) is largely irrelevant.

As for some of your other points: people already live and do business in China despite their atrocious environmental record. While there is money to be made people won't care.

People send their children to live and work in atrocious conditions in factories, will anything really change if those children struggle to care for their parents without state help? I struggle to see it.

As for profits leaving the country, I wonder how long this will go on for. Companies are already moving their nominal base out of the US and Europe to places like Dubai. It is easy to move that aspect of your business, and would be easy to shift it to China if that was the best way to make good profits. I also can't help but think that a lot of companies are being a little short sighting in madly outsourcing everything. Sooner or later the Chinese companies say "we'll we're already doing everything except keeping the money, why don't we start our own company and keep the money?".

You already see it in the electronics industry where asian companies who used to only manufacture for bigger brands are now major powers in their own right.
posted by markr at 4:38 PM on July 28, 2008

Should be:

Pollution today in Beijing was at its worst for a month, and officials say air quality will be good by the time the Olympics start on August 8


Because why?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:42 PM on July 28, 2008 [7 favorites]

Unfortunately, it's hard for American journos and commentators to make much sense about China, because they interpret it all as a threat to America's preeminence. It's a bit of a pissing match and a contest for superiority, so a lot of US commentators get all defensive or arrogant.

They should lighten up and realise that the world doesn't revolve around the good ole US of A.

Also, the dickhead should particularly realise that we live on a finite world, and NO country is going to have a growing population by the end of the century. The US is, irresponsibly, about the only developed country that is still growing. Doesn't make it sustainable.

Regarding air pollution, Beijing is pretty foul, but no worse than London in the 50s, or LA in the 70s.
posted by wilful at 4:47 PM on July 28, 2008

The Washington Post link had some interesting points - particularly the age demographic problem - but I side with the others in saying that pollution does not seem like any special obstacle to superpowerdom.

The Soviet Union had horrendous pollution and environmental problems. The United States and the British Empire both had extreme pollution problems in history. And in none of those cases did the environmental problems present a problem in becoming or retaining the status of a superpower.
posted by XMLicious at 4:48 PM on July 28, 2008

Man, just imagine the pollution after the Olympics. With all the closed factories open and all the cars back on the road.

As long as the skies are blue during the Olympics, making for good TV beamed across the world, not enough people care about the aftereffects. Plus, a lot of the heavy polluters (steel companies, for example) have been permanently moved away from the city in the lead-up to the games. They are just pushing the pollution around, though, not solving anything in the long run.

Since it's largely caused by economic development weighing heavier than environmental concerns, it might take a while to get it balanced out (much like in other places in this world). Maybe once it becomes a question of public health it might spur some real action.
posted by gemmy at 4:51 PM on July 28, 2008

Beijing manufactures its own scenery for Olympics

The fake scenery thing is no recent phenomenon. They've been doing it for years. Hell, the whole damn place is an endless array of cheap, but shiny facades tacked shodilly onto a rotting hulk.
posted by Pollomacho at 4:52 PM on July 28, 2008

China buys the silence of grieving parents: Free ‘life insurance’ has been offered to families of children who were killed when schools collapsed
posted by homunculus at 4:53 PM on July 28, 2008

China is planning a sweeping purge of Tibetan monasteries, including banning all worship at those deemed to be major centres of subversion.
posted by homunculus at 4:54 PM on July 28, 2008

I can't wait to see the first track athlete fall down in paroxyms while vomiting blood.
posted by eurasian at 5:01 PM on July 28, 2008

The LA smog was terrible in 1984, but that didn't stop them from having a heck of an olympics; even with the eastern block boycott.
posted by humanfont at 5:02 PM on July 28, 2008

All these articles on China look the same to me.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:19 PM on July 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

This article was dumb.

China is a world super power.
posted by tkchrist at 5:22 PM on July 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Basically I'm saying that total GDP is more important. And the population of your country (when it comes to the power you wield) is largely irrelevant.

Well, again, there needs to be a healthy balance. China has a huge GDP, but that number, taken by itself out of context, is meaningless, because the country has a huge population -- in other words, you'd expect to have a huge GDP, if only because you have a billion people living and working there.

It's like you had a car that was really fucking fast ... but that's all it's got going for it. Handles like a boat. Lousy gas mileage. No cupholder. And how're you going to fit the kids in the backseat? This car is not a candidate for, you know, growth.

Unless all you do is take it to the drag strip. Which is kind of analogous to what China is doing now. Drag racing with 1 billion people.

It just won't work in the long term. Huge population + low standard of living = lots of unhappy people who are not being all they can be, and the best of the bunch doing everything they can to leave. Not a great recipe if you want to be a "superpower," whatever that means.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:23 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee, said Sunday that the government would attempt to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing area by installing a fenced perimeter in the sea that is more than 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, long.

The Great, Algae-Containing Fence Of China?
posted by weezy at 5:36 PM on July 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

My only concern about the Beijing Olympics in this given moment is, will this horrendously inalienable rights-stealing Chinese government, in light of all its atrocities and horror, allow pancakes?
posted by ZachsMind at 5:58 PM on July 28, 2008

Unless all you do is take it to the drag strip. Which is kind of analogous to what China is doing now. Drag racing with 1 billion people.

Is it, really? I hope whoever's driving China doesn't think so... China had a bit of a slow reaction time, it was way behind at the 60-foot mark. Now the turbo has spooled up and they're roaring ahead with that 1.3 billion horsepower motor sucking up gigantic amounts of fuel, and the noise is deafening. Just hope the engine doesn't blow up before the finish line, it's never really been tested at this speed. Hey, where is the finish line, anyway? All of a sudden the track curves left and China realizes its not in a drag race at all, it's an endurance race.
posted by sfenders at 6:07 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

All of a sudden the track curves left and...

any number of countries spin out of control. Thankfully the China vehicle, while ponderous, has awesome power steering, and scrapes around the corner.
posted by wilful at 6:14 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Two of the girls on the Beijing Olympics Gymnastics Team are underage, and you guys are worried about the smog? That's just a smokescreen to hide the fact that China is blatantly cheating so they can get some gold medals.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:23 PM on July 28, 2008

Some points re: comparisons between the USSR's pollution and China's. The Soviets could bury their most polluted sites in Siberia, or the far north, well away from major population centers. Russia's population density is much lower than China's, so it's easier to see massively polluted sites and think to oneself, "We can just move a few miles over, where no one lives." China, on the other hand, has very little arable land compared to its population, very little breathing space, and very little in the way of fresh water supplies. So even thought the Soviets may have had the same amount of pollution total, the Chinese are polluting their cities and their most productive farmland instead of some tiga or tundra somewhere. Big difference. If you don't think massive increases in cancer rates and respiratory illnesses will have a negative effect on productivity I'd like to hear why not. For that matter, if anyone can suggest what China should replace fresh water with, since well water a thousand miles inland is now getting salty, I'm sure China would be interested. "Tea" doesn't count.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:41 PM on July 28, 2008

Awesome power steering sure, but they'll need the skills of a Kung-Fu Panda to put it to good use.

Pollution today in Beijing was at its worst for a month,

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, air quality in Beijing today is "Good", and the past week has seen only "Slight pollution".
posted by sfenders at 6:41 PM on July 28, 2008

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, air quality in Beijing today is "Good", and the past week has seen only "Slight pollution".

Oh, good. I was worried there for a minute, but as long as the Chinese government is assuring us that things are all right, I know everything must be fine.
posted by lullaby at 6:56 PM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I've recently been reading a bunch of magazines from the teens and twenties of the last century, during WWI and its aftermath, at Google Books. This thread is reminding me a bit of some of the amusing things I've read there scoffing about Soviet Russia, how ludicrous, ineffective, and inefficient the industrial and political systems the new Bolshevik government had set up were, how the country would never amount to anything, etc.

I'm not saying that I think China is inevitably certain to loom larger in world affairs than it has already but these seem like rather inadequate reasons to discount the possibility of it. I mean they have shown a little bit of potential, things like being the third nation in human history to put a man in space, and throwing a fair amount of weight around on an international scale - you aren't going to see any industrialized countries diplomatically recognizing Taiwan any time soon, they're still in the Olympics as "Chinese Taipei" this year, no matter how much smog there is in Beijing.

1adam12, good points about pollution in China vs. the USSR (though I'm skeptical about the idea that they sequestered all of their pollution in Siberia - I haven't come across that notion before and I'm pretty sure that at least in the Central Asian republics there's lots of health problems from Soviet-era pollution) but what you said there still doesn't add up to some sort of overriding obstacle to global political—industrial—military dominance in my estimation. (Assuming that's what we mean by "superpower".)
posted by XMLicious at 7:05 PM on July 28, 2008

Actually, come to think of it, these environmental problems seem like they might even be the sort of thing to cause China to become a superpower, if problems with food production resulted in China establishing control over overseas sources of food. Check out this Times article from May.
posted by XMLicious at 7:18 PM on July 28, 2008

I'm just hoping that the smog won't obscure Cai Guo Qiang's fireworks at the opening of the Olympic games. That's all I'm looking forward to in Beijing 08.

Or if they are obscured, I'd really like to know what he has to say about it.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:20 PM on July 28, 2008

I had never heard of Cai Guo Qiang. He's pretty good with explosions.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:37 PM on July 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

y'know, I never thought to look for Cai on youtube. I am a happy man now, thanks Sonic!
posted by kuujjuarapik at 8:19 PM on July 28, 2008

Coincidentally, I learned today that a graduate student of mine is working on a website for a Canadian company working to reforest parts of China to help correct some of their environmental issues.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:51 PM on July 28, 2008

That's Mr. Meat Machine to you, kuujjuarapik!

no it's just that my name has nothing to do with Sonic the Hedgehog; smm is the ISO standard abbreviation
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:30 PM on July 28, 2008

They should have taken care of the smog first. At least algae would help to hide six-eyed fish.
posted by moonshine at 11:04 PM on July 28, 2008

If China didn't own so much of America's governmental debt and sell us so many products paid for by consumer credit I would not be concerned. But all of that money has to be paid back and Americans expect to be purchasing those things now at those low prices, China has job security and a pension.

They are also investing in the future by colonizing Africa. The overpopulation problem in China will be relieved by making the African continent Chinese. Africa will be free of Western intervention, and the cost will be Chinese ownership.
posted by Parallax.Error at 12:05 AM on July 29, 2008

So just to clear this up, the oil under middle east is ours and it just ended up over there but the pollution from the manufacture our goods in China is theirs and our athletes shouldn't have to breathe it?
posted by srboisvert at 3:12 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Why can't China become a world superpower while completely ignoring their environment?

Because no one will want to live there or do business there.

The other answer is "because their countries' ecosystems could collapse (further)". This would mean that 'services' provided by nature, like soil in which crops grow, water that can be easily made drinkable, air that can be breathed, insects to pollinate crops, bacteria to biodegrade (some) wastes, etc. would no longer be available, and would have to be supplanted by human labor and additional fossil fuel energy input.

Just because current economics doesn't measure services provided by nature doesn't make them any less real.
posted by anthill at 6:19 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I left the house yesterday morning, the air was red -- actually red. A noxious crimson death-haze that seeped into your eyes and throat and just settled there in all its awful oily benzenity. It smelled like sea tortoises being lightly napalmed.

But it's a small price to pay -- knowing that I live in a world with a ready supply of quality bulk stimulants and rubber balls!
posted by milquetoast at 6:57 AM on July 29, 2008

The fake scenery thing is no recent phenomenon. They've been doing it for years. Hell, the whole damn place is an endless array of cheap, but shiny facades tacked shodilly onto a rotting hulk.

This makes me think of Inherent Quality, the concept. One might assume that, say, the Japanese culture believes in the real, inner quality of things, whereas the Chinese culture runs on pretense and 'saving face'. (though I know this aspect figures in most Asian cultures)

Would those who know these two cultures comment? I am ignorant but interested.

(also, it may be that I just hate the Chinese food served in the West and am misled by the apparent difference in produce quality naturally turned out by Chinese and Japanese factories)
posted by Laotic at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2008

Apparently the view that China is the next major export market/world superpower goes back to the 1700's or so. I gotta go find that book again.

Seeing as how China was consistently among the worlds super powers for the last 3,000 years and was arguably the most powerful, that's not really an uniformed view.

James Fallows has been keeping an interesting tally of preparations for the Olympics on his blog. He also wrote an interesting article on encouraging efforts made by the Chinese to control pollution.

A lot of the problem with pollution in Beijing is geography. The city is surrounded by mountains and air just tends to get stuck there. If the weather goes bad they could get screwed no matter what they do.
posted by afu at 8:15 AM on July 29, 2008

Beijing manufactures its own scenery for Olympics

I don't see what the big is about this is. They put up walls around construction sites and then put pretty pictures on the walls. What's wrong with that?
posted by afu at 8:17 AM on July 29, 2008

Giant fans.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:16 AM on July 29, 2008

The question

Why can't China become a world superpower while completely ignoring their environment?

Has twice gotten the exact same answer:

Because no one will want to live there or do business there.

But this just has nothing to do with being a superpower. The USSR was not a superpower because people really wanted to live there and do business there.

Giant fans.

Tiny trees. Whoops, wrong country.
posted by XMLicious at 9:57 AM on July 29, 2008

The USSR was not a superpower because people really wanted to live there and do business there.

It depends on how you define "superpower." The USSR was clearly a military superpower, with a directed economy propping up huge amounts of military spending. But it was never an economic superpower. At its height in the 1970s, it's economy was about half the size of the U.S. economy, and not much larger than Japan or a split-in-half Germany. And when it was gone, every single one of its client states, save Cuba, gave up central planning models.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:11 AM on July 29, 2008

It depends on how you define "superpower."

"Superpower" is a designation that was developed and used relative to the late nineteenth — early 20th century concept of "the Great Powers" of the world. The USSR is one of the two nations for which the term "superpower" was invented. If you're saying "Sure, China could end up politically dominating the world in the same way the USSR did or the way the USA (the current world's greatest polluter) does, but it just totally wouldn't count as a superpower in that case because of its crappy environmental and pollution problems" I think you're trying to twist the meaning of the word "superpower" to make some assertion about the importance of environmentalism. (Though perhaps not consciously.)

I believe that environmentalism and environmental protection are very important and are essential to the future welfare of the human race. But that just doesn't have anything to do with whether China will be geopolitically dominant in the future. It's certainly in everyone's best interest if China takes care of its environmental problems, but pretending that China cannot become ascendant on the international political stage without embracing environmentalism is a projection of our own desires for what we want the future of the world to be like, I think, rather than a genuine assessment of future political developments.
posted by XMLicious at 12:07 PM on July 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Internet sites still blocked for Olympic reporters
posted by homunculus at 7:57 PM on July 29, 2008

China accused of inflating terrorism threat
posted by homunculus at 7:59 PM on July 29, 2008

This makes me think of Inherent Quality, the concept. One might assume that, say, the Japanese culture believes in the real, inner quality of things, whereas the Chinese culture runs on pretense and 'saving face'. (though I know this aspect figures in most Asian cultures)

Would those who know these two cultures comment?

I don't know the two cultures, but because I have the powers granted to every random person on the Internet, I will say that I found the following experience interesting:

A salesgirl in a stall in Beijing's "antiques" district told my (Chinese) wife and I that they had three price structures: one for Chinese people; a higher price for non-Chinese; and a still higher one for the Japanese. She claimed the Japanese would value a thing more if its price were high. How much that is a self-serving cover for converting the dislike that many Chinese have of the Japanese into profit, I do not know. My point is that the Japanese may believe "in the real, inner quality of things," but they may not always be able to recognize it, any more than anyone else is.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:01 AM on July 30, 2008

I wonder if any political protesters will be setting landfills in Beijing on fire just in time for the olympics.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:35 AM on July 31, 2008

Olympics Journalists Urged To Use Crypto, to Thwart Chinese Spying
posted by homunculus at 3:19 PM on July 31, 2008

The Asia Society just put up a look at the environmental issues in China. The "Room With A View" section is a daily photo diary of the air in Beijing - it really shows the stark difference between good/bad pollution days.
posted by gemmy at 8:21 AM on August 1, 2008

Banning Tibet
posted by homunculus at 12:10 PM on August 1, 2008

Labour camp for earthquake photo teacher
posted by homunculus at 12:11 AM on August 3, 2008

China: Humiliation & the Olympics
posted by homunculus at 10:06 AM on August 3, 2008

China revokes visa of gold medalist, Darfur activist Cheek
posted by homunculus at 9:29 AM on August 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Olympic Organizers Give All Clear To Beijing Air, Despite Smog
posted by homunculus at 3:51 PM on August 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

The deliberate wearing of masks by athletes even on clear days (assuming there are any) could be done as a way to publicly shame China. Especially if done during the opening ceremonies. Maybe they should have domed the bird's nest.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:53 AM on August 7, 2008

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0
posted by homunculus at 10:16 AM on August 7, 2008

FOUR US cyclists who wore masks over their noses and mouths when arriving for the Olympics have apologised to Beijing Games organisers. Hard to shame someone when your sport federation forces you to apologize.
posted by GuyZero at 10:31 AM on August 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

From GuyZero's link:

Ljungqvist had previously accused the media of exaggerating the pollution threat in Beijing, and confusing smog with water vapour despite readings which showed Beijing's air quality was poor.

He said it was a "misconception" to believe the health of athletes and Olympic visitors could be endangered by the Beijing atmosphere.

"Most of the smog here is evaporation. It's due to humidity," he said.

If he's serious, I'd say he's never been to Beijing.

posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:12 AM on August 7, 2008

Didn't Los Angeles host the Olympics some years ago? Isn't it like smog capital of the world? Didn't people from China wear masks when they came to visit LA? I know I would, and I live in the US.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:38 PM on August 7, 2008

" 'Most of the smog here is evaporation. It's due to humidity,' he said."

Okay I'm no meteorologist, but I believe that "smog" caused by "humidity" is called "fog." Is there any "smoke" that appears to mix with the "fog"? In that case, we have "smog."

FOG + SMOKE = SMOG

I know this is a difficult concept to master, but if the news media is going to discuss smog during the Olympics, it's important to understand this distinction.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:47 PM on August 7, 2008