China's new national hero

Posted By Blake Hounshell Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - 6:03 PM Share


THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images

Tyler Cowen cites this story as evidence that "we shouldn't boycott the Olympics in any way":

A wheelchair-bound Chinese torch bearer has rocketed to national fame after fending off protesters in Paris, becoming a symbol of China's defiance of global demonstrations backing Tibet.

Jin Jing, a 27 year-old amputee and Paralympic fencer has been called the "angel in a wheelchair" and is being celebrated by television chat shows, newspapers and online musical videos after fiercely defending the Olympic torch during the Paris leg of the troubled international relay.

Protesters denouncing Chinese policy in Tibet threw themselves at Jin. Most were wrestled away by police but at least one reached her wheelchair and tried to wrench the torch away. Jin clung tenaciously to what has become a controversial icon of the Beijing Olympic Games until her attacker was pulled off. Her look of fierce determination as she shielded the torch, captured in snapshots of the scene, has now spread throughout China, inflaming simmering public anger at the protests. "I thought we had lost in France, but seeing the young disabled torch bearer Jin Jing's radiant smile of conviction, I know in France we did not lose, we won!" said one of tens of thousands of Internet postings about the incident.

Here's Jin receiving a hero's welcome at a Lenovo event in Beijing:


China Photos/Getty Images

Jin, who received scratches on her chin and shoulders during the Paris incident, cuts a pretty damn sympathetic figure. No wonder Chinese netizens are so angry with the French.

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PINGSMILE

1:42 PM ET

April 16, 2008

Targeting the Olympics = Targeting the People

As a Chinese born in Beijing in the 1980s, I was a girl scout growing up in the narrow alleys watching skyscrapers rise one after another in the neighborhood, a naïve child disappointed in the summer of 1989 that all the cartoons on TV were taken up by news reports of how only soldiers were killed like dogs. I was a pupil who was taught to love China, the Chinese people, and the Chinese Communist Party. Now as an expatriate in the United States, I have become used to hearing different voices, voices that label China as “a threat,” “authoritarian,” “human rights violator,” “currency manipulator,” “cheater,” and “sham products manufacturer”.… Unsure which side of the story to believe, I usually remain silent. But as calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics intensify, I feel the need to stand up and defend Chinese citizens who, together with the government, are also the hosts of the Olympics and therefore also the recipients of all the criticism aimed at the Olympics being held in China.

Boycotting the Beijing Olympics Games would be unfair to many people. If one considers how hard many athletes worked to be able to compete in the Games, to try to win one last medal in memory of their short athletic career before they retire, one will understand whom the efforts to boycott the Games might end up hurting. Furthermore, many critics of China hosting the Games seem unaware of the immense effort and enthusiasm the Chinese people have put into their preparations for the Games. I saw tears in people’s eyes when Beijing lost the opportunity to hold the Games in 2000. I saw tremendous efforts by taxi drivers to memorize English words to welcome international guests even before they could recognize the 26 letters of the English alphabet and I cannot forget the sweaty but happy smiles of hundreds of housewives and retired workers volunteering ten hours a day, seven days a week to practice Chinese traditional dance in the extreme heat of Beijing’s summer to celebrate the countdown a year before the Games. Living among them, being one of them, I am certain that these people were by no means coerced by the government to do these things. The Games have brought together all facets of Chinese society. Regardless of income level, the people of China have worked hard to host the Games. As professor L. Ling-chi Wang wrote in a recent commentary on cnn.com, “Not since the ten-year nightmare of the Cultural Revolution have the Chinese been more dedicated to and collectively mobilized for a national project: to host the first Olympics in China.” When the Olympic torch was extinguished so many times during the protests in Paris, it was these average people’s feelings that are being hurt.

Targeting the Olympics to fight for a broad range of causes is not only unfair to many people, but it may even backfire. Other than stimulating the spirit of freedom, the protests of this past week are breeding misunderstanding and resentment, at least among the many Chinese people I know. I have talked to my family, friends, friends’ friends from various walks of life, who spent most of their lives in China. All of them expressed frustration and anger towards the torch relay being disrupted. Friends who usually could not care less about politics recently changed their MSN IDs into “poor Olympics,” or “Go China.” Some even commented that the disruptive, violent tactics being used are no different from those of terrorists. I also received emails from overseas Chinese organizations calling for demonstrations. This unity is unusual, especially since many Chinese view themselves as “a heap of loose sand.” The people I cited above do not necessarily represent all Chinese people, but I fear that they are not the minority. It deeply worries me that, under more attacks and humiliation on the Beijing Olympics, this strong frustration and resentment might turn into an irreversible trend of xenophobia among the mainstream Chinese people. I believe, for at least some of the Olympics protestors, that is definitely NOT what they want to see as a result of their actions.

The Olympics could potentially encourage China to be on its best behavior. April 12 is the anniversary of the U.S. table tennis team’s first visit to China—a move that led the way to President Nixon’s visit. If a simple game could bring together two great powers, think of what the Olympic Games could do. The Olympics IS political, but only in a sense that it can unite nations and promote peace, not the opposite. Maybe this time, people with various causes who see an opportunity in the Beijing Olympics should really step back and rethink what they are really achieving.

 

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