Column The party in Beijing

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: The last time a country planned a summer Olympic games as a ‘coming out’ party, things went horribly wrong for the planners. The country in mention is South Korea, which successfully bid for the 1988 edition of the games in 1981. The administration of dictator, Chun Doo-hwan, submitted Seoul’s bid to the IOC in order to showcase Korea’s impressive economic achievements to the world and thus grant some international legitimacy to his regime, which had only recently succeeded the unpopular but economically successful tenure of assassinated dictator-president Park Chung-hee. Needless to say, it was also seen as a means to quell domestic political discontent and growing calls for democratisation.

Eventually, of course, the strategy backfired on President Chun—-protestors stepped up the ante in the summer of 1987 and the president was forced to step aside and call for direct elections in a move to prevent any embarrassment to the Korean nation during the impending Olympics. Curiously enough, then, the Olympics played an important role in bringing democracy to South Korea, ending decades of authoritarian political rule, which had admittedly delivered economic success.

The experience of South Korea would hardly be a role model for the Chinese communist party, which must have carefully studied the similarities. China bid for the 2008 Olympics some seven years ago, and like in the Korean case, certainly planned the event to showcase a newly prosperous and booming China to the rest of the world. Again, the Chinese government must surely hope that its economic success, soon to be witnessed by the world’s leaders, athletes and press corps, will dilute some of the harsher criticism about the legitimacy of communist party rule.