China gets the 2022 winter Olympics

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IN 2022 the Winter Olympics will be held in a place with no snow. On July 31st the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Beijing, to be held in the city of Zhiangjiakou, 250km (150 miles) north of the capital. The resort beat Almaty in Kazakhstan, the only other remaining city left in the bid. China has a lot of work to do in the next seven years to ready itself. Among them is to make some snow.

When any city is awarded the Olympics, questions quickly follow about the country’s ability to build the appropriate infrastructure in time—and how much it will cost. These cause less anxiety in China. In its bid the country highlighted its prowess at building fancy stadia, zippy high-speed rail and other transport links on time. Beijing has already hosted a successful summer Olympics—making it the first city ever to host both. In terms of the cost, the government deems no price tag too high for the prestige of staging the Olympics, yet another symbol of China’s growing pre-eminence in the world.

More worrying is China’s ambition to stage the winter Olympics—and launch a winter sports industry—in an arid desert...Continue reading

Xi Jinping’s fight against corruption in the military continues

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THERE had been rumours of his downfall since last year. On July 30th, they got him: Guo Boxiong, former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, which runs China’s armed forces, was expelled from the Communist Party for taking bribes. He is the most senior ranking official in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to be toppled for corruption.

The move is a sign that President Xi Jinping’s campaign against corruption is still running at full tilt. Mr Guo’s son, also a senior officer, was put under investigation in March. But after Zhou Yongkang, China’s former security chief, was sentenced to life imprisonment in June for graft and leaking state secrets, some China-watchers suggested that Mr Xi might now scale back his efforts. The latest expulsion proves that view wrong. “One demon killed, all demons deterred,” ran a line in an article about Mr Guo in People’s Daily, a government mouthpiece.

The arrest is a further assertion of Mr Xi’s control over the military; he has stressed the “absolute...Continue reading

Need a weatherman

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

ROW after giant row of wind turbines marches towards the snowy peaks of the Tian Shan range, harvesting energy from the air. On a blustery July day in Xinjiang in China’s far west, it is hard to stand upright beside the structures, each 90m (nearly 300 feet) high. China is better known as a land of coal and smog, but it is now increasing the generation of electricity from renewable sources faster than any other country, with more than 100 gigawatts a year of installed generating capacity from wind, a third of the world’s total (see chart). In future, wind power will be a vital source of renewable energy. If it can integrate large-scale wind generation into its electricity network, China will be an example for other countries.

By many counts wind generation in China is a success story. Over the past decade generating capacity has increased tenfold, while the cost of building wind farms has fallen. Three of the...Continue reading

Rising penetration rate

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

For galoshes, size does matter

IT USED to be that condoms could be found in China only during business hours, at government family-planning clinics, on production of a marriage certificate. In recent years they have become far more readily available—in vivid and sometimes intimidating variety—alongside the chewing gum, cigarettes and crisps on offer at all-night convenience stores, in hotel rooms and in vending machines. Sales of biyuntao, literally, “pregnancy-avoidance sheaths”, are growing fast.

The name biyuntao, however, suggests why use of them is low in China compared with many other countries. Contraception is widely seen as a woman’s responsibility—indeed, abortion is one of the most common methods.

Open discussion of sex remains taboo in most quarters, making it difficult to raise awareness of how useful condoms are, not only to prevent pregnancy but also the spread of disease. Aditya Sehgal of Durex, a British brand, says about 10% of Chinese who potentially are sexually active are regular condom users. That is about the same proportion as in...Continue reading

Confucius says, Xi does

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

TWO emerging cults are on display in Qufu, a city in eastern China where Confucius was born. One surrounds the ancient sage himself. At a temple in his honour, visitors take turns to bow and prostrate themselves before a large statue of Confucius seated on a throne. For each obeisance, a master of ceremonies chants a wish, such as for “success in exams” or “peace of the country”. On the other side of the city the tomb of Confucius is the scene of similar adoration—flowers adorn it as if he were a loved one recently lost.

The other cult in Qufu surrounds the country’s president, Xi Jinping. People still recall with excitement the trip he made to the city in 2013. It was the first by a Communist Party chief in more than two decades; in fact, though Mr Xi has visited Qufu he has not, since becoming China’s leader, paid respects at the birthplace of Mao Zedong at Shaoshan in Hunan province. Today plates decorated with Mr Xi’s image are for sale in Qufu’s trinket shops. His beaming face is on display on a large billboard outside the Confucius Research Institute, together with a quotation from the modern sage: “In the spread of Confucianism...Continue reading

Render unto Caesar

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Its cross to bear—for now

THE Communist Party is struggling to manage the only cult in China bigger than itself—the Christian church. All down the country’s eastern seaboard it is hard to find a village that does not boast a spire or tower topped with a cross. To some in the party, this is a provocation, especially in the south-eastern province of Zhejiang around the coastal city of Wenzhou. Over the past 18 months, party leaders have ordered the demolition of such crosses. But this month the provincial branches of the Catholic Patriotic Association and the Protestant Christian Council—two of the government bodies that administer the official churches allowed in China—each issued an open letter to provincial officials condemning the demolitions.

The letters accuse the party of violating its own commitment to the rule of law. They add that the incidents have damaged the Communist Party’s image at home and abroad. It is, says Yang Fenggang of Purdue University in Indiana, the first time that leaders of official churches have come out openly on the side of ordinary believers against the Communist...Continue reading

Shaft of light

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Risking life to fuel China

FOR decades China’s coal mines served as tragic showcases of greed, corruption and contempt for life: thousands died in accidents every year and many more after prolonged agony from dust-clogged lungs. In 2003 Wen Jiabao, who was then about to become prime minister, went down a shaft to have dumplings with miners. He told local officials that safety was the Communist Party’s priority. Over the next three years, however, just as many coalworkers died in mines—more than 18,000, by official counts—as in the preceding three years. Mr Wen’s words rang hollow.

Then a striking turnaround began. Chinese coal mines became far safer even as they more than doubled output to fuel the country’s economic boom—they produced 3.9 billion tonnes in 2014, about half the world total. Last year 931 miners were killed in coal-mine accidents. It was the 12th year in a row in which the death toll reportedly fell. By one measure of mining safety—deaths per million tonnes of coal produced—China’s record had improved twenty-fold since 2002, to 0.24 (see chart). That is still about ten times worse than in...Continue reading

Uncivil

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

SOME were taken from their homes in the middle of the night. Others had their offices raided, or were summoned to “take tea” at the local police station—a euphemism for being interrogated. According to Amnesty International, around 120 lawyers, as well as more than 50 support staff, family members and activists, have been rounded up across the country since the pre-dawn hours of July 9th. Many have been released, but as The Economist went to press at least 31 were still missing or were believed to remain in custody.

The round-up has been remarkable for its speed, geographic extent and the number of people targeted. Teng Biao, a Chinese lawyer and activist currently in America, says it includes nearly all of China’s civil-rights lawyers. They are a harassed lot at the best of times, but this is the most concerted police action against them since such lawyers began to emerge in the early 2000s as defenders of the legal rights of ordinary people in cases against the state. In the past few days state media have vilified them, describing them as rabble-rousers seeking “celebrity and money”.

The police have...Continue reading

Tales of the unexpected

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

WEIJIA is a typical Chinese seven-year-old. He loves riding his bike and anything to do with cars; he is a badminton fanatic and has lessons twice a week. In a few months’ time, however, he will become rather less typical. He will have a brother or sister—something most urban Chinese children lack.

His parents are taking advantage of a relaxation in November 2013 of the country’s strict family-planning rules. Couples are now allowed to have a second baby if one parent is an only child. After more than 35 years of often brutal enforcement of the one-child-per-couple policy, some had expected a mini baby-boom to follow. The National Health and Family Planning Commission estimated that the new rules would allow 11m more couples to have a second child (there were already exemptions for some). It thought that 2m of them would try in the first year. But by the end of 2014 fewer than 1.1m people had applied for the necessary permit.

That worries the government, which has tweaked the rules not out of sympathy for lonely only children or for parents who want a spare heir, but because of a population crunch. The country is ageing rapidly. In 2012...Continue reading

Rigging the daddy race

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Learning to keep tabs on the property market

INSIDE the red-lacquered door of No. 39 Wenhua Lane in central Beijing is an old-style single-storey home built around a small courtyard. Its owner, an elderly man in a vest, sits on an upturned bucket near a jumble of cooking pots; a pile of old cardboard rests atop a nearby shed. Next to the man, two estate agents hover at the entrance to a room just big enough for a bed, a wardrobe and a rickety desk. They say it costs 3.9m yuan ($630,000). At 353,990 yuan per square metre, this makes it pricier than posh digs around New York’s Central Park—and it does not even have its own bathroom and kitchen. It is, however, close to the state-run Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School, one of the best in the city.

Until recently, that would have had little bearing on the price of the room. For years it has been officially required that admission to a school be based solely on how close a child lives to it. Schools have paid little attention. Backhanders and connections have counted for much more. So too have entrance tests, designed to exclude the less able (unless they were rich—those...Continue reading

Everything Xi wants

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

SINCE taking over as China’s leader in 2012, President Xi Jinping has shown an unusual preoccupation with challenges to the country’s security. A year later, to handle these, he set up a new national security commission and made himself chief of it. On July 1st the country’s parliament helped him further by adopting a new law on national security. It conveys the remarkable range of Mr Xi’s worries, with potential threats seen to be emanating from sources as diverse as the internet, culture, education and outer space. For its insight into the often opaque psychology of China’s elite, the bill will be welcomed—not so, however, by anyone with grievances against the Communist Party.

The law is a dense 6,900 characters of party-speak, with little in the way of detail (not even any specific punishments), but plenty of obligations such as to “defend the fundamental interests of the people” and take “all measures necessary” to protect the country. Many countries, including America and India, have laws on national security. But the variety of concerns covered in China’s is striking, as is the vagueness of its language (an exception is that...Continue reading

Lifestyles of the rich and infamous

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Two smartwatches? I’d rather have a bone

NOW decades old, China’s economic boom has brought a better life to hundreds of millions. But it has also created new problems, such as pollution and inequality. And, for the super-rich, a moral conundrum: how, wealthy parents wonder, can they raise children who do not behave like arrogant brats?

China now has an estimated 1.09m people with personal wealth of at least 10m yuan ($1.6m), and 67,000 “super-rich” ones with assets above 100m yuan, including 213 dollar billionaires. Their children, the “second-generation rich”, or fuerdai, are the object of rapt attention in national media and a mixture of envy and revulsion among ordinary folk.

They can be seen driving outrageously posh cars which, thanks to stiff import duties, can cost $1m or more. Some of them post ostentatious pictures and vulgar rants about their exploits on social media. Wang Sicong, the son of one of China’s richest tycoons, recently aroused a storm of criticism for saying that his main criterion when selecting a girlfriend was that she must be “buxom”. He also...Continue reading