Cyreenik Says
The Olympics get people excited.
And, while they are held regularly, for each city or nation that does the hosting, they are in the one-time-event category.
They are also kind of scary. If you screw one up, everyone in the community remembers it.
Scary and unique... this makes them Panic and Blunder candidates.
In China in 2008, I think we are seeing a Panic and Blunder situation unfold. The Blunder is the handling of the Tibet Unrest Crisis.
The coming of an Olympics causes a community fever. I personally witnessed Olympic Fever when the Winter Olympics came to Utah in 2002. First, Utah business and community leaders campaigned long and hard to get selected for the Olympics in the first place.
Once Salt Lake was selected, community and business leaders had to prepare the city, which is a unique process for each city that hosts.
The excitement of preparing stimulates a lot of enthusiasm, and Salt Lake became a bit "hyper" for about two years. Two ways the hyper expressed itself were raising property values and stimulating new businesses and business expansions.
Then... the big day! The Olympics came... and were hosted successfully... and then... it was all over.
For a couple of years after the Olympics, the "hyper" was replaced with "hangover". Property values languished, and many business projects started on Olympic excitement didn't prosper as expected. Many were discontinued there was a surge in bankruptcies in the Salt Lake area.
My prediction: This same cycle is going to happen in China. And, it's about time for the hangover to start.
China has been hyper for the last couple years as the nation prepared for the Olympics. There has been lots of news about it, and the Chinese government has been very overt about wanting the Olympics to showcase the "New China".
The Chinese government looks at the boost Korea got from the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and wants a similar boost for China.
This summer, the Olympics will happen, and then it will be all over. What will come next will be Olympic Hangover.
What to expect most is a general relaxing, a general slowing down as people and places get over being hyper about the Olympics.
Is China going to shrink?
No... it won't be that severe. But there will be pain, and there will be broken businesses.
Is China going to suffer unrest?
That is very likely. Most of China has been warned to be on it's best behavior for the upcoming Olympics, and people have been willing to cooperate with that warning. When the Olympics end, people will feel more like complaining again.
The unrest in Tibet is a Blunder response. The government panicked in it's worry about Tibet unrest, and it Blundered in how it put the lid on that unrest.
I don't know the details of what they did wrong. But I'm sure that in 2007 the local officials in Western China stepped on a lot of Tibetan toes (and other toes) in an effort to keep the place "peaceful". In the process they disenfranchised the Tibetans even more than they had been in the previous decade, and that aggressive disenfranchisement during 2007 is the root of the problems we are seeing flare up in 2008.
Since the local officials who turned the screws hard in 2007 don't want to admit they made a mistake, they have blamed the Dali Lama for what has happened. (and, if those officials are in Panic Thinking mode, they sincerely believe they didn't made a mistake.)
China of today is "big" like the USSR was "big" in the 1980's -- there are a lot of restive minorities inside the nation. In the case of China, most are located in western China. The USSR broke up when it went bankrupt. The Beijing government doesn't look like it's ready to go bankrupt, but if it does, the unrest in the west could lead to a China breakup comparable to the USSR breakup.
That's what I have for now. It's Blunder watching time in China. Lets see how the Olympic Fever/Hangover unfolds.
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