China' rulers get more popularity after the Games

CHINA'S communist rulers will likely emerge from the Olympic Games with greater confidence on the world stage, as they enjoy a boost in support among their proud citizens at home, analysts said. However, China's authoritarian approach to staging the Olympics — it gave little ground on international concerns over human rights and media freedoms — has also strengthened more repressive forces in the government, according to analysts.

The completion of a widely praised Games free from operational blemishes is seen as bolstering those in the Communist Party who argued that the iron-fisted approach was the right one. "The security hardliners are the main beneficiaries (of the Games). The police-state apparatus looks more entrenched and will benefit in terms of greater budgets and real power," said Willy Lam, a Hong Kong-based China scholar.

Several high-profile dissidents were jailed in the run-up to the Games as part of a campaign to silence what had been a vocal tide of disenchantment with China's human rights situation, corruption and social injustices. China is also carrying out harsh crackdowns in Buddhist Tibet and the heavily Muslim Xinjiang region after deadly recent unrest there highlighted deep anger over alleged Chinese repression. Nevertheless, a surge of nationalist pride among many of China's 1.3 billion people after seeing their athletes dominate an event that showcased a modern superpower will likely translate into greater prestige for the party. "The Olympic Games is definitely a boost for the legitimacy of the Communist Party. It's going to consolidate public opinion and rally support," said China scholar Tang Wenfang, from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.

Lam said President Hu Jintao had seemed committed to some genuine, if slow, reform before the Games. But recent events appeared to have dashed any hope of a further political loosening of the kind South Korea saw following the 1988 Seoul Games, Lam said. "There will be no political liberalisation. It's what the Chinese call 'the reckoning after the autumn harvest' — taking revenge on your enemies," he said. "With all the foreigners gone and the world media no longer focused on China, they may take serious reprisals."

The toughened approach is likely to be seen nationwide, not just in Tibet and Xinjiang, said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst. "The hardliners won the struggle to make the Olympics 'their' Games, an event very much under the eyes of the authorities. It backs their argument that more control breeds more success in China," he said. This more strident approach may also be seen on the world stage, Moses said. "I think this could make (China) more inflexible overseas. The leadership must be careful that self-confidence and performance in the arena does not translate overseas," he said.

Xu Wu, a former journalist with the official Xinhua news agency and an expert on nationalism in China, said Olympic success had helped bury painful Chinese memories of past domination by foreign powers. Contrary to some analysts, Xu expects a more confident China that will act more responsibly overseas. But he added that China may be less tolerant of world criticism over its rights record and other actions. "After such a disarming show of (Olympic) goodwill and kindness to the outside world, if the so-called 'world community' still treats China as a convenient whipping boy it will reinforce the hardcore nationalist forces in China," said Xu, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. And with the Olympics over, the government has plenty of other ways to boost national pride, particularly pushing forward its space programme that saw China become only the third nation to put a man into space in 2003. "The next goal to crystallise the national focus could be putting a man on the moon. That's the next milestone in national glory," Lam said.

AFP