About That Chinese Infrastructure

Things are going so well in China that the government is basically starving one region of China of water resources so that there is sufficient water in Beijing.

The Chinese government doesn't want people to know about this - the drought in the region and the massive canal being built that will transport what water is left to Beijing:

The local river - once a torrent - has dried up. It's now a landfill where local women sift through piles of waste plastic.

But, unbelievably, water is being diverted from this area to Beijing.

Not far down the road, workers toil on another giant canal to feed more precious water to the Chinese capital. Bulldozers and men with picks work side by side on the massive project, part of the much criticised South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which will be completed in 2010.

Officials in the area are reluctant to let foreign journalists interview locals. When a Sky News crew visited, several men who refused to identify themselves surrounded the camera, blocked the lens with their hands and then followed Sky's team on their drive back to Beijing.

The government has engaged in a massive coverup of the true state of their country, let alone their capital city of Beijing. They've made areas off limits and hidden the rest behind a false facade.

That's the kind of infrastructure that Obama wants for the US?

Well, you've got folks like the AP and other talking heads fawning over the shiny new buildings in Beijing, along with the hundreds of millions of dollars in development of projects in the city, but they wholly ignore what is going on in the rest of the country, where a snowstorm basically shuttered the entire country for weeks on end this past winter - and where a key railway was out of service that meant that coal deliveries and supplies were disrupted, leaving power to much of the country in doubt. As I've been fond of saying, the Chinese have created a Potemkin vision for the media, and the truth is that the government has build some shiny new buildings for the world, but the Chinese people continue to suffer under a regime that can barely provide potable water to their people.

Think of it this way. How many Chinese will ever get to see the Water Cube or wander the grounds where the Olympics are being held? The Chinese do not allow large crowds to congregate there because of the fear that they'll demonstrate against the government. They don't let people demonstrate in Tienanmen Square. That would be akin to the US prohibiting groups of people from congregating on the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial to memorialize and commemorate Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. The Chinese have built tremendous pieces of architecture and facilities that may only be seen from afar.

These spaces could be national treasures and tremendous public spaces that the entire Chinese people could enjoy and be proud of. However, the government's need to tightly control public actions and reactions, will never let that be the case.

Indeed, the government has already hinted that they'll be fencing off large parts of the complex after the Games.

I can distinctly recall going to Salt Lake City a few years back and wandering through the downtown area, seeing where the various events took place, and driving over to Deer Valley to see the skiing venues. Anyone can go. You can even ski the same slopes or skate on the same ice or train in the same facilities as the Olympians. It's a lasting legacy to everyone who wants to use them.

The Chinese have a different mindset - one that is based on restriction and retention of power. That infrastructure is built with one purpose in mind - not for the people, but for the government to exploit for political purposes. And the government has been quite successful since much of the media is bedazzled by the glimmering Olympic venues and not paying nearly enough attention to what is going on just beyond the gates.