World Seeks a Label to Define the Beijing Games

Smog, New Power, Architecture Cited As Key Story Lines

For many, these Olympics are a Rorschach test for how one feels about a big, complicated and hard-to-pigeonhole developing country holding a major international event. Human-rights groups have tried to dub the Games the "Genocide Games" for Beijing's support of Sudan and that African government's alleged crimes in Darfur. Others have called them the "Smog Games" for the city's dreadful air pollution. Still others predict this will be the Games when China ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala

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Review

Jack Dinkmeyer
4.1
by Jack Dinkmeyer - Oct. 1, 2008

Although the subtitle includes smog, new power, and architecture, the article focuses almost exclusively on comparisons between this Olympics and past Olympics—some, Moscow and Berlin, were were negative for the West—in a futile attempt to classify it, rather than just enjoying the games for what they are. The article’s real message is that everyone's ambivalence and difficulty trying to define this Olympics actually reflects the West’s ambivalence about China, itself, and its emergence as a world power—perhaps even the next world leader.

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