Hold Your Breath

By Felice E. Baker
Posted January 24, 2008

On August 8th, 2008 the Olympic's ceremony arrives in Beijing. And while many fans will be busy interpreting the new logo and looking for Athlete's Village, the International Olympic Committee will be frying larger fish.

According to the World Health Organization, the air contamination over Beijing now reaches about two to three levels over its recommended, maximum pollution levels. Furthermore, when this pollution is coupled with a dearth of rain and wind, and with temperatures that regularly reach 100°F during the month of August, the result is what Wired.com describes as, "a photochemical bouillabaisse of coal smog, steel-mill spume, and tailpipe crud, mingled with concrete dust and baked in the oven formed by surrounding hills" for this summer's athletes and spectators. Such conditions make it very likely that traditional endurance events, such as the marathon, cycling and long-distance track events, will not be held. These toxic, atmospheric conditions, combined with the nonchalance with which China is addressing its controversial human rights issues, makes it difficult to determine exactly why the IOC has approved China's candidacy as the host of this year's Games.

Nevertheless, Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC is doing his best to provide an explanation for China's viability as a host. The Belgian orthopedic surgeon has stated that Beijing will not be the first city with significant air pollution issues to host the Olympics and jogs our memory by providing prior examples of athletes who have suffered pulmonary and gastric distress while competing in Mexico City (1968), Los Angeles (1984) and Athens (2004). Randy Wilber, a manager of the US team, supports Rogge's claim by going as far back as 1904 ,citing the collapse of the British marathon runner, Steve Ovett, who suffered severe gastric distress while running through the extremely dusty streets of St. Louis, Missouri (only 14 out of the 32 competitors were able to complete the course).

However, though it is true that earlier host cities have harbored significant levels of pollution, The New York Times reports that China's pollution problem is uniquely catastrophic. It writes:

"Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China's leading cause of death....Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. Cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country's 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. [There are] industrial cities where people rarely see the sun [and] children are often killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of pollution."

Though China promised the IOC that it will take extreme measures to purify the air before the 2008 Games, it seems to have begun to implement its plans for such efforts only recently. In fact, as late as the year 2007, this promise still lacked any real teeth; coal is a cheap and easy propellant for the growing industries, and the absence of regulatory tax measures leaves almost zero means by which to curb China's fuel consumption.

China implemented more eleventh hour efforts by encouraging the use of public transportation through the distribution of bus and rail passes in 2007. However, in spite of the fact that a fairly impressive 29% of the Chinese population used public transportation to commute in 2006 (a rate which has since remained rather constant), the number of commuters using private vehicles has nonetheless soared from 23% - 30% between the years of 2002 through 2007, and is expected to keep increasing by an astonishing 1,000 newly registered cars daily. As a result, the current total of 3 million registered cars in Beijing is expected to rise by a third in 2010, according to BBC News, thereby raising pollution levels even higher.

Finally, recent October, 2007 test results for pollution levels in the air surrounding Beijing were yet again concluded to be three times over the recommended limit set by the WHO. Thus, the $16 billion dollars which China has already allocated towards pollution-eradicating methods seems useless in ameliorating the air quality problem for the Games this August. If such dire conditions persist (and they likely will), the IOC insisted in early December, 2007 that certain endurance events will be either rescheduled or cancelled, and that decisions to do so would be made either prior to or during the competition. The thread of Olympic tradition, unthinkably, is threatened.

Tacked on to this dire pollution problem is China's laundry list of domestic and international human rights issues. According to Chinese Deputy Minister of Health, Huang Jiefu, 95% of the organs reserved for transplantation were reserved from executed prisoners as of 2006. Journalists, dissidents and internet users face the constant peril of being imprisoned, child labor is still exploited in many country's factories and Tibet has suffered under nearly 60 years of oppression by the Chinese government. Though the list of domestic human rights' violations continues, two key international human rights' issues include China's continued arms for oil trade with Sudan despite the country's violent oppression of Darfur rebels and China's support of the violent suppression of pro-democratic rebels within Burma by the country's Communist military regime.

Rogge claims that introducing the Games to China will encourage the country to tackle its persistent domestic issues concerning human rights. "It has...become clear that it is better to open a new door to China than to leave it closed at this point in its modern evolution. An open door approach will continue to benefit China, its citizens and its relationships with other nations long after the 2008 closing ceremony." He continues, "In this sense, the IOC believes more than ever that the Beijing 2008 Games offer a great legacy for China to manage and sustain."

However, though Lord Colin Moynihan, Chairman of the British Olympic Association agrees with Jacques Rogge that holding the 2008 Olympics Games in China may encourage the country to positively resolve its human rights issues, he remains skeptical that such a governmental concern should even be expected to be resolved by the advent of the Games in China (or in any country dealing with controversial societal issues). He states, "neither the Olympic movement nor, indeed, anyone should expect the 2008 Olympic Games alone to bring China into line with international human rights standards. Expectations of an Olympics-led metamorphosis are simply unrealistic. Real change requires consolidation of the position of China's domestic reformers and a wider public recognition of human rights."

Matt Whitticase of Students for a Free Tibet opposes the view that the Beijing Olympic Games will ameliorate human rights issues and insists that they will actually encourage the Chinese government to detract attention from the weighty issues of human rights and focus on China's modernization in the 21st century, as well as its relevance within the world community. Whitticase explains that, "China is using every opportunity that the Olympics provides to promote itself as a modern, free and open society, and when it does that of course, it diverts attention away from [specific problems, such as] its brutal occupation of Tibet, which has been ongoing for about 60 years."

China is intensely proud of the honor of hosting the Games this summer; the torch ceremony in Beijing this August will mark the end of 150 years of being passed over by the international community as politically unworthy. However, when asked whether any progress in the Chinese government's observance of human rights has been detected as preparations for the Games continue, head of the German chapter of Amnesty International, Irene Khan stated that she expects, "an increase in harassment, detentions, and people placed under house arrest ahead of the Games." Her reasoning was that China will be seeking to use this rare opportunity to present to the world a face of peace and harmony, and that it did not want dissenting protestors or over-inquisitive journalists ruining that veneer.

Nevertheless, one can hope that the increased international scrutiny induced by this year's Olympics will subsequently encourage China to veer away from disappointing the world's onlookers, whose collective attention will be piqued after having viewed the idealized image which China has attempted to portray of itself. In this way, China would hopefully be more likely to reform many of its oppressive policies in order to maintain the upkeep of the image it has cast throughout the globe. It is therefore up to China to decide how wisely it plans to use the possibly golden opportunity that is presented to it.

However, it is worth considering whether the IOC is also ignoring human rights by exposing athletes to such hazardous conditions. According to der Spiegel, "Endurance athletes spend hours performing at peak levels in the open air, inhaling up to 150 liters of air a minute - more than 10 times as much as a sedentary worker," thereby increasing the chances that athletes in Beijing will be inhaling huge quantities of the same air that significantly contributed to the deaths of 300,000 Chinese people annually through indoor contamination, according to a World Bank study in the Spring of 2007. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to expect that even non-endurance athletes will be adversely affected, even if the IOC decides to cancel endurance events.

According to Frank Kelly, an environmental scientist at King's College in London, "Most symptoms [of pulmonary inflammation and asthma-like symptoms caused by ozone and fine dust] subside after 24 hours, but the long-term consequential damage is still poorly researched." Ironically, the ninth statute underneath the "Mission and Role of the IOC" in the Olympic Charter states that "the IOC's role is to encourage and support measures protecting the health of athletes."

Health risks aside, is it fair that staple events, such as the marathon and cycling races, are being compromised for the sake of Chinese pride? Marco Cardinale, an advising doctor for the British Olympic Committee, states that even if the IOC decided to allow endurance events to proceed in August, "[he] wouldn't expect a world record in the marathon in Beijing. The issue isn't just air quality, but the combination of heat, humidity and bad air." What is the point of having a series of sports competitions take place in conditions that almost guarantee that athletes will be unlikely to achieve their full potential?

To seize the opportunity to transform China into a more democratic and internationally cooperative country presented by the Olympic Games is a praiseworthy one, though the results likely yielded by this effort will be slight to nil. But, the fact that this endeavor entails sacrificing the health and possibly lives of tens of thousands of competitors and foreign spectators, eliminates certain events, and risks increasing the Chinese government's oppression over its population in light of the preparation for the ensuing Games, clearly shows that Beijing has too many factors working against it to have been considered the rightful host of the 2008 Olympic Games. Ironically, China's victory was an Olympic defeat.