China's tough year isn't an Olympic celebration

May brought a sharp rise in the number of reported cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease, a normally non-deadly viral infection that has killed 39 children this year and infected nearly 30,000 others.

Only last week’s feat by a team of Tibetan and Han Chinese mountaineers in bringing the Olympic flame up Mount Everest gave China the positive publicity it craved, three months to the day before the start of the games.

Beijing’s leaders had carefully chosen Aug. 8 as the opening day for the 2008 games (8-8-08), believing that it was an especially auspicious day. Many Chinese people in this officially atheist nation remain highly superstitious. The number eight, “ba” in Chinese, is closely associated with prosperity and good luck because it sounds similar to the word “fa,” which means rich.

China spared no expense on its Olympic debut, spending an estimated $40 billion on improving infrastructure and building sports venues. Its money was apparently well-spent. None of the venues, 31 of them in Beijing alone, was reportedly damaged.

Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium known as the Bird’s Nest — the jewel of the Olympics — was conducting an inspection at the venue when the quake occurred. He said the building was designed to withstand up to an 8.0-magnitude quake.

“The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake,” said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. “We considered earthquakes when building those venues.”

Ultimately, the series of crises could prompt China to reassess its true priorities, said Des Forges.

“I think there may be some way in which these crises are reminding the government that, as important as the games are, there are perhaps more important issues that need to be addressed,” he said.

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