China's Chance

China is only trying to clean up their image because of the olympics. What were they doing before the olympics?

So Mr Sun says in ten years they have improved air quality but I do not see how when they have parked up their bikes and all taken to four wheels

Olympics 2008 in Beijing will facilitate the cultural exchange between Chinese people and the rest of the world. Educating people to be more environmentally conscious is the most important thing that can help the the situation.

I lived in China in the early 90's...and I wouldn't recognize it now...I am certain of that....the amazing transformation that China has taken is a testament to the incredible work ethic of the Chinese people...

Some follow-up reading to this pod can also be found on the NY Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

As Mr. Sun, the spokesman for Beijing's Olympic Committee, says in this piece, "China is a developing nation." That pretty much sums up China's side of the story. The other side of the story is what we hear, because much coverage of China tends to look at its shortcomings, most which, ten years ago, focused on China's lack of democracy, and much of which, these days, focuses on the price of China's rapid development, in the vast number of people left behind, in widespread corruption, in environmental degradation, and most recent, questions about product safety. But China sees the 2008 Beijing Olympics as its chance to show its side of the story. That is, in perhaps the largest economic transformation in history, accompanied by the largest internal migration in history, China has gone in a generation from one of the world's poorest nations, to one its largest economy--by some measures, such as Purchasing Power Parity, PPP--the second largest. And the fact that it's the world most populous nation makes this transformation all the more amazing--and from the Chinese point of view, excuses a range of flaws. The question is, will the Olympics transform China further? Nearby South Korea was still a dictatorship when Seoul hosted the 1988 Olympics. Within a short span thereafter, it held its first truly democratic elections. So the title of this piece, China's Chance, implies several different outcomes...