“peasants with dung on boots”
The Chinese government have shown themselves to be bunch of peasants with dung on their boots when it comes to international propaganda. The term in Chinese is “tu bao tz” (土包子) - pork buns (bao tz) made out of dirt.
Forget Yang Pei Yi (楊沛宜) and Lin Miao Ke (林妙可) - well, mostly. Forget the CGI fireworks. Forget that the enormous number of people used in the opening ceremony were from PLA song and dance troupes.
The big scandal is that China is showing us just exactly why investment there is still risky; why the “golden opportunity” everyone seems to be thinking lurks in China’s market is as frail as a butterfly. The Chinese government still has its fingers in every aspect of society, and that makes the shift from stable to unstable business environment just a power struggle away.
The CCP wanted these games to showcase the “new” China. Instead, they’ve provided two wonderful examples of why the new China is the old China painted up like a Shanghai warlord’s aging mistress.
Take, for example, the fact that the decision maker for the Lin Miao Ke switcheroo was a member of the Politburo:
“The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen,” Chen said. “Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi’s voice was the most outstanding.”
During a live rehearsal soon before the ceremony, the Politburo member said Miaoke’s voice “must change,” Chen said in the radio interview. He didn’t name the official.
Yah, I’ll bet he declined to name names. But Mr. Chen also let it be known that the decision was not his, keeping an eye on future political developments in case these Olympics are judged to be politically ineffective in a post-hoc analysis. That way of thinking is very, very Communist. I don’t see much evidence of a new China there, do you?
Imagine the press reaction if a government official had issued such an order in the West. Not to mention that the National OC would have told him to kiss off. Even in the more authoritarian democracies such as Japan or Korea, that kind of political meddling would not have flown. That is not to say that some art director would not have made the switch long before it came to rehearsal, it’s that the decision would not have been political. And sponsors in the West would have been keenly sensitive to criticism if a contest winner had been substituted at the last minute for a “cuter” version.