The Olympics Games Opening ceremony

Dear John,

You have certainly watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics Games which happened recently in Beijing.

For a lot of observators, it sounded like that we witnessed a historical event : the rise of China as a great superpower.

The French public seems mainly hostile to the "Despotic China" so that they had a very biaised appreciation of the ceremony. I do not agree with them and I think that the ceremony was meaningful and demonstrated the strength of this country.

In my opinion there are three interesting political messages that the Chinese authorities wanted to convey to the world audience :

1. China is getting more and more powerful

2. In reality, this rise is "historically natural" because the country has always been a great power and the fact that the world has a technological and intellectual debt toward it is a piece of evidence of that.

3. This rise will be a pacific one

4. Future belongs to China

1. Just look at the first ten minutes of the ceremony, dear John, you won't be surprised to acknowledge the cohensive intelligence of the Chinese people who are able to make an impressive choreography. They are able to unite the force of thousands of a people just as one man. The count down before the official opening of the game wanted to convey this idea.
Adding to that, they were all hiting the same traditional musical instrument which incorporated modern technology: the idea is that there is no disharmony between their old knowledge et new technology.

2. The technological scroll showing China's great inventions and intellectual breakthroughs like calligraphy and its meaning for the relation between mind and body, the printing machine...
There was also the battleships of Zhang He from the Ming Dynasty that embody China's power and its openness toward the world.

3. The third step in the ceremony was the demonstration of China's pacific aims : the Chinese audience imitated a white colomba flying and a lot of peace symbols were presented to the world audience.

4. the last idea was the triumph of China: through its youthness, diligent and hardworking, full of filial piety, China is going to win in all fields. Everybody can remind the young girl singing the Chinese national anthem. Chinese people respect what they call "tiancai" 天才, those who are naturally talented can have their potential developped. China wanted to show that developping talented people is a State matter and highly taken into consideration. It is also an old confucean worry.

My dear, John, it is said that Chinese people are talentuous in communication. The olympics games played perfectly this role as a medium to reassure the world audience scared by China's rise

Perhaps some readers can bring to us their other points of view about that.

Voscaint