This Olympics is a bad deal for China

There will be profound impact, in both positive and negative directions, with all the demos and counter-demos surrounding the Olympics Torch Relay. And some of the demonstrations were clearly designed with domestic consumption, rather than Western audiences in mind. But I think the biggest negative reactions would probably come from highly nationalistic countries such as Korea or Japan, and not mature democracies such as US, UK or France.

But I do not think all the emotions involved are not justifiable. Let's use an easy to understand example to illustrate. Suppose your neighborhood has a tradition of block party each year. And you are the host this year. You prepare for it carefully and knock on each neighbor's door to deliver your invitations. Instead, you get slapped by your neighbors left and right, and threatened with boycott. I guess you can keep cool and say that your block party will go on with no impact, and that those slaps actually kill germs on your skin and help with your blood circulation. But normal people would characterize this type of reaction (or lack of) by a character in 魯迅's novel.

Looking back, the Olympics is a bad deal for China. China does not gain anything from the Games, politically or economically. With the way they spend money, there is no way it's going to be profitable venture. TI and other anti-China forces clearly won and crashed the block party. The only ones who benefited are probably the people of Beijing, who just taxed the whole country again for this special event.