중국, 한국을 배워라! WSJ 베이징올림픽 질타

 

중국, 한국을 배워라! WSJ 베이징올림픽 질타

[뉴시스] 2008년 04월 13일(일) 오전 05:10

 

 

[뉴욕=뉴시스]‘올림픽은 한국의 민주주의에 공헌했다. 왜 중국은 그렇게 못하나?’

월 스트리트 저널(WSJ)이 베이징 올림픽 특집판을 발행하며 한국을 올림픽을 통해 민주주의를 정착시킨 모범 사례로 들었다. WSJ는 12일(현지시간) 8쪽의 베이징 올림픽 특집판을 발행, 정치적 소용돌이에 휘말린 베이징 올림픽의 문제와 중국의 현실 등 민감한 소재들을 다뤄 눈길을 끌었다.

특히 저널은 3면 톱으로 올린 기사에서 88서울올림픽을 앞두고 민주화 시위를 벌이는 한국 대학생들의 사진과 함께 올림픽 개최권을 따냈을 때만 해도 군사독재국가였던 한국이 국제사회의 여론에 부응, 헌법을 개정하고 자유 민주선거를 실시해 성공적인 민주국가로 정착한 사실을 높이 평가했다.

저널은 국제올림픽위원회(IOC)가 중국을 2008 올림픽 개최국으로 결정했을 때 딕 파운드 캐나다 IOC 위원과 중국 인사들이 올림픽이 중국의 민주주의를 개선시킬 것이라고 강조한 사실을 환기시켰다. 당시 위안웨이민(袁偉民) 체육부 장관은 올림픽 개최권 획득을 축하하는 자리에서 “중국은 인권 향상의 바른 길을 가게 될 것”이라고 말했다.

그러나 올림픽 개막을 넉달 앞둔 지금 중국은 이런 변화의 약속을 공허하게 만들고 있다. 중국 정부는 국내의 비판자들의 입에 재갈을 물리고 해외에서는 수단, 미얀마와 같은 국민을 억압하는 정권을 돕고 있다.

티베트의 독립 요구 시위 사태는 중국의 열악한 인권의 현실을 다시한번 말해주고 있다. 중국의 민주운동가들은 언론의 자유를 봉쇄하고 파룬궁 탄압 등 종교적 박해를 가하는 중국 정부를 비난하고 있다. 딕 파운드 IOC 위원은 “한국과 중국은 상황이 많이 다르다. 한국은 중대한 정치 변혁의 와중에 일본과 산업민주주의의 경쟁을 하는 처지였지만 현재의 중국은 그런 필요성을 갖지 않는다”고 말하고 있다.

중국은 올림픽을 통해 민주주의를 앞당긴 한국과 달리 올림픽을 군사대국의 위상 과시와 비민주적인 제3세계국가들에 대한 영향력을 강화하는 수단으로 활용하고 있다. 그들은 올림픽이 끝나면 자체 위성을 최초로 발사할 예정이며 달에 우주인을 착륙시키겠다는 목표를 세워 놓았다.

중국은 ‘경제 발전이 사회 변화를 이끌어낸다’는 기치 아래 베이징 올림픽을 통해 현대적이고 산업화된 국가로 자리매김한다는 계획이지만 ‘천천히 그리고 꾸준히’ 추진한다는 입장이다.

그러나 비판가들은 중국 정부의 이 같은 입장을 납득하지 못한다. 일부에서는 중국과 한국을 비교할 필요조차 없다고 주장한다. 알프레드 센 전 위스콘신대학 역사학 교수는 “중국의 현 상황과 1988년 한국은 비교 대상이 아니다. 중국은 나치 독일의 베를린 올림픽과 옛 소련의 모스크바 올림픽처럼 세계 많은 나라들이 반대하는 정책을 시행하는 강압 정권으로 비교되야 한다”고 말했다.

1896년 태동한 올림픽이 정치적 분규에 휘말린 첫번째 무대는 1908년 런던올림픽으로 당시 러시아는 그들이 지배하던 핀란드의 메달을 별도로 집계하는 것을 강하게 반대했다.

중국은 1956년 멜버른 올림픽에 대만 선수들이 참가한다는 이유로 올림픽을 보이콧했다. 1968년 멕시코시티 올림픽은 개막 열흘을 앞두고 경찰과 군인들이 수백명의 시위대를 학살하는 참사가 있었고 1972년 뮌헨 올림픽은 팔레스타인 게릴라가 11명의 이스라엘 선수단을 사살하는 비극이 일어났다.

올림픽의 정치적 이슈가 새로운 이정표를 세운 것은 바로 서울올림픽이었다. 한국이 올림픽 개최의 꿈을 꾸기 시작한 것은 1970년대부터였다.

한국 현대사와 관련한 많은 책을 집필한 언론인 조갑제씨는 저널과의 인터뷰에서 “당시 한국의 지도자들은 올림픽이 한국의 번영을 앞당기고 북한을 약화시킬 것으로 판단했다”고 말했다. 또한 당시 한국을 인정하지 않던 다른 공산국가들과 북한을 분리하는 계기가 될 것으로 기대했다.

올림픽 개최를 1년 앞둔 1987년 한국은 경기장 건설 등 대대적인 올림픽 준비로 분주했지만 거리에서는 전두환 정권을 규탄하는 시위가 벌어지는 등 극심한 혼란을 겪고 있었다.

연일 계속되는 한국의 시위 사태는 올림픽 관계자들은 물론, 수십억달러를 투자한 스폰서들과 방송사들을 불안하게 했다. 많은 이들이 한국이 올림픽을 제대로 개최할 수 있을지 의문을 표했고 런던과 로스앤젤레스 같은 도시들은 서울 대신 올림픽을 개최하겠다는 의사를 피력하기도 했다.

전두환 전 대통령이 직접 후계자로 꼽은 노태우 전 대통령은 서울올림픽이 큰 위기에 처했다고 판단, 전두환 전 대통령으로 하여금 김영삼 전 대통령 등 당시 야당의 지도자들과 회동하도록 압력을 넣었다. 그해 6월24일 전두환 전 대통령을 청와대에서 만난 김영삼 전 대통령은 “그때 나는 반드시 설득해야 한다고 생각했고 그가 귀 기울인다는 느낌을 받았다”고 회고했다.

닷새 후인 6월29일 노태우 전 대통령은 시위대의 요구를 받아들여 헌법을 개정하고 자유선거를 실시한다고 발표했다. 그해 12월 노 대통령은 최초의 민주선거로 당선된 대통령이 됐고 1992년에는 김영삼 대통령이 취임했다. 저널은 당시 전두환 전 대통령이 6·29선언 하루 전 보좌관에게 “올림픽을 성공적으로 개최하는 것이 권력을 유지하는 것보다 더 중요하다”고 말했다고 소개했다.

저널은 중국은 한국과는 달리 대대적인 민주화 시위 등 내부의 운동과 리더십을 발휘할 지도자도 없는 등 여러 가지로 상황이 다르다면서 “우리는 많은 난제들을 풀기 위해 민주적인 방법들을 동원할 것이다. 우리에게는 시간이 필요하다”고 말하고 있다고 전했다.

노창현특파원 뉴시스통신사

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BEIJING OLYMPICS 2008 

No Comparison

The Olympics helped bring democracy to South Korea. So why aren't they doing the same thing for China?

By EVAN RAMSTAD AND GORDON FAIRCLOUGH

April 12, 2008; Page R3

When Olympic officials awarded China the 2008 Summer Games, they justified the move by pointing to another controversial venue -- Seoul.

South Korea was a military dictatorship when it was given the 1988 Summer Games. But the Games focused international attention on antigovernment protests -- and the country's leaders gave in, rewriting the constitution and holding free elections.

The International Olympic Committee hoped the Beijing Games might also spark political change, says Dick Pound, an IOC member from Canada. Some Chinese officials encouraged the notion, hinting that the Games would bring improvements to China.

"China is going in the right direction with human rights," said Yuan Weimin, Beijing's sports minister at the time, in a toast celebrating Beijing's selection. Mr. Yuan had allowed stadiums to be used for public executions in the 1990s.

Today, with just four months to go before the opening ceremonies, critics say Beijing's promises of change were empty. They blame the government for silencing opponents at home and giving aid to repressive regimes abroad, including those in Sudan and Myanmar.

Violent protests by Tibetans have drawn renewed criticism of China's human-rights record. And a range of activists are protesting the Games and the torch relay to draw attention to specific causes -- from press freedom and human rights to the continued repression of the Falun Gong religious movement.

As it turned out, "the dynamics and circumstances are quite different between China and Korea," says Mr. Pound. South Korea, he says, was in the throes of "significant political turmoil" before the Games and wanted to become an industrial democracy to compete with Japan, he says. "China does not have the same needs."

No Parallel?

China shows few signs of the massive popular discontent and organized opposition that forced the end of military government in South Korea, observers say. Instead, politics in China are slowly evolving as the country grows richer, and the Olympics could accelerate changes already under way.

For the Chinese government and many, if not most, of the country's 1.3 billion people, the Beijing Games will be a celebration of what they see as their country's enormous economic, political and social progress. China, in the eyes of Chinese, is more prosperous and free than at any time in its long history.

China this year is marking the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's decision to turn away from central planning and to reopen China to the rest of the world. These changes have transformed the nation from a Communist backwater into the world's fourth-largest economy.

Indeed, the Beijing Olympics coincide with a push by China to carve out a bigger role on the world stage. China is strengthening its military and mounting a diplomatic offensive in the developing world designed to promote its nondemocratic development model. A further boost to national pride will come after the Games, when China is planning to send astronauts into orbit to conduct the country's first space walk -- a milestone in its effort to put a man on the moon.

In those terms, Chinese leaders and scholars do see their Olympics as similar to those in Seoul in 1988 -- but for different reasons than the IOC did. The Games, they think, will mark the country's arrival as a modern, industrialized nation.

"Economic development demands social change. And there have already been big changes in China," says Ren Hai, a sociologist who is director of the Olympic Research Center at the Beijing Sport University. But, since political shifts have been "slow and steady," he says, outsiders tend to underestimate the extent of the transformation.

Critics of the Chinese government aren't convinced. Some draw even harsher parallels than Seoul.

"Looking at the situation in China, Seoul in 1988 is not the comparison," says Alfred Senn, a retired historian at the University of Wisconsin who taught a course and wrote a book on politics and the Olympics. "The comparisons that stand up are Berlin in 1936 and Moscow in 1980, where you had strong regimes whose social and political policies were objected to by many countries around the world."

Chinese leaders dismiss such comparisons. Last month, China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said that while China would welcome "suggestions and criticisms offered out of goodwill," those who want to "tarnish the image of China" will "never get their way." Mr. Yang said that human-rights groups and foreign politicians were violating the Olympic Charter by trying to "politicize" the Games.

A History of Politics

As the biggest sports event in the world, however, the Olympics have been bound up with politics almost since the start of the modern Games in 1896. The first big dispute was in 1908, at the Games in London. Russia objected to the separate medal totals and flag-flying for athletes from Finland, which Russia controlled at the time. China itself boycotted the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia, protesting the inclusion of athletes from Taiwan.

The Olympics have been halted during world wars but have continued amid other political strife. In 1968, the Mexico City Games went ahead just 10 days after Mexican police and soldiers killed hundreds of protesters just miles from the Olympic Stadium. In 1972, violence struck the Games themselves when Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches in Munich.

But the political fallout from an Olympics reached a new height in South Korea.

The country's leaders first began discussing the prospect of pursuing the Games in the 1970s. The leaders wanted the Games to help build South Korea's economy and weaken North Korea, says Cho Gab-je, the author of numerous books of contemporary history in South Korea. Leaders hoped the Games would prompt other Communist nations to recognize South Korea -- which they didn't at the time -- and thus drive a wedge between them and North Korea.

In June 1987, Seoul was ahead of schedule in preparations to host the Olympics, with construction nearly done on highways, stadiums and housing for athletes and other visitors. But news reports from Seoul showed chaos in the streets. Nightly, thousands of workers, housewives and students joined in a shopping district to protest the decision by Chun Doo-hwan, the ruling general, to halt debate about making the country a democracy.

The protests unnerved Olympic officials, sponsors and broadcasters who had invested hundreds of millions of dollars. Many expressed doubts Seoul could pull off the Games. Civic leaders in London and Los Angeles said they might be able to take the Games instead, if they worked quickly.

Mr. Chun's hand-picked successor, Roh Tae-woo, realized that the Games were in jeopardy. He pressed Mr. Chun to meet some of the country's leading dissidents, including Kim Young-sam, who was likening the Seoul Games to Hitler's event in 1936.

On June 24, Mr. Kim met Mr. Chun at the presidential Blue House. "I went in thinking I must persuade him to yield," Mr. Kim said in a recent interview. "When I left, I felt he had listened."

Five days later, Mr. Roh announced the country would accept protesters' demands to write a new constitution and hold an election. That December, Mr. Roh became the first democratically elected president. In 1992, Mr. Kim succeeded him as the second.

                             Students demonstrated during the 1988 Seoul games.

A day before the pivotal announcement, records show, Mr. Chun told an aide that successfully staging the Olympics was more important than hanging on to power. Mr. Chun declined an interview request, maintaining a silence with the press that he has kept since leaving office.

'Satisfaction With Life'

China has turned out differently for many reasons. Perhaps the biggest: There is no internal movement for change with the kind of mass support, organization and leadership that existed in Korea. According to a multiyear survey of urban and rural households by the Horizon Research Consultancy Group, the degree of satisfaction with the Chinese government's management of social affairs, as well as people's "general degree of satisfaction with life," climbed significantly between 2000 and 2007.

Externally, too, the situation is different. By the time it was selected to host the Games, China's economic influence was so great that other countries couldn't push for major political and social improvements without risking harm to their treasuries and consumers' pocketbooks.

Until the unrest started in Tibet in March, the loudest protests about China's behavior in the past year or so have been on foreign-policy issues, such as its influence on trouble spots like Sudan. In some cases, the pressure appears to have modulated Chinese foreign policy, and certainly has pushed China into much more public efforts to justify its decisions.

Last September, the government invited members of the foreign press corps to visit an engineering unit of the People's Liberation Army that was preparing for deployment as part of a United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. As reporters watched, soldiers went through their paces setting up refugee camps and laying down portable bridges.

A peacekeeping official from China's defense ministry, Senior Col. Dai Shaoan, announced: "China has an obligation to make its contribution to the maintenance of world peace."

After Steven Spielberg protested China's Sudan policies by withdrawing from production duties at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, China's special envoy for Darfur, Liu Guijin, defended his country's actions in unusually blunt words. He acknowledged that the situation in Darfur is a "humanitarian disaster," but said that China was pushing Khartoum to show more flexibility in allowing peacekeepers into troubled areas.

Shortly after Mr. Spielberg's decision, U.S. President George W. Bush told a British interviewer that he still planned to go to the Olympics. "I have a little different platform than Steven Spielberg, so I get to talk to President Hu Jintao," Mr. Bush said. "And I do remind him that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur." He added, "There's a lot of issues that I suspect people are going to opine about during the Olympics."

'Give Us More Time'

At issue, of course, is how China's explanations of its efforts clash with the expectations and desires of outsiders. The Chinese government has recently moved to crack down on internal dissent ahead of the Games, which has drawn outrage from human-rights groups and plenty of media attention. one outspoken dissident, Hu Jia, who had used the coming Olympics to criticize China's human-rights record, was sentenced in April to 3 1/2 years in prison after a Beijing court found him guilty of subversion and libel.

Chinese Olympic boosters hope that the Games will help foster better understanding of China by outsiders. "We hope people will gain a better understanding of the real situation in China, understand the way Chinese people think," says Luo Xianglin, a professor of sports education at Hunan Normal University. "We are a developing country. People need to give us more time."

Mr. Ren of the Olympic Research Center says that preparations for the Games show that China's political culture is changing. Government plans to build a retractable roof on the Olympic Stadium were dropped after protests from academic engineers who said it would be too expensive and might not work, he says. Another government project to line ponds near Olympic venues with plastic was undone after opposition from environmental groups.

"These kinds of things never would have happened before," Mr. Ren says. "We are using more democratic ways to solve problems."

Both Mr. Ren and Mr. Luo say that there is a danger of a backlash among Chinese if criticism from Western activists gets too shrill. After all, Chinese people, on the whole, don't think Tibet should be autonomous, don't believe that Taiwan should be able to determine its own future and are offended by foreign harping on the country's shortcomings.

China's citizens "will pay attention to what people say. The reaction will be emotional," says Mr. Luo. "If it is bad, people will be frustrated and angry."

But Mr. Ren says the Olympics may help Chinese become more thick-skinned about international opinion. "China must learn how to tolerate different opinions," he says. "We should accept useful criticism. We have problems. Air pollution is terrible. Everyone can see it. Can we say we are very clean and green? No. No one would believe it."

Mr. Ren and many others in China see the Olympics as less of a capstone than a stepping stone, as the county's rapid transformation continues and its economic and political role in the world grows. "Will China change the world, or will the world change China?" asks Mr. Ren. "Both will be changed. People need to see the truth. China is very complicated."

--Mr. Ramstad is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Seoul bureau, and Mr. Fairclough is a staff reporter in the Shanghai bureau. SungHa Park, a news assistant in Seoul, and Ellen Zhu, a researcher in Shanghai, contributed to this article.