Introduction

C. Richard Yarbrough, Director for communication of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, called this sport highlight “the world’s largest special event” (Wilcox et al, 2003). And in fact, it would be difficult to imagine a single event that has the power of the Olympic Games to attract the interest of the most different individuals and organizations and to stir up curiosity and passion in such degree and among a broader public.

The Olympic Games benefit from the mystique of sport in its purest state. They incarnate some values that, though anachronistic as they may be, still sell well: The “fair play”, the myth of the dignity of participating versus the ambition of wining, or the epic of victory and defeat. These values, added of course to the spectacle offered by elite athletes, the best ones in every discipline, make the Olympic Games one of the most longed-for sport events. The fact that the Olympics take place just once every four years increases the significance of the event and confers on it an almost historic transcendence.

This world-wide excitement is also the reason why the Olympics are so attractive for private companies, for they perceive the event as the best showcase for their products and the perfect occasion to construct corporate identity. There is no better publicity than to be associated in the public mind with the Olympic Games and all the values that they represent. It is not cheap publicity, though. Private corporations are willing to make great economic efforts to sponsor the sport event par excellence. The advertising agency DDB Needham estimates that a company interested in co-sponsoring the Olympics would have to be able to pay out, as initial commitment, around U.S. $ 40 million. To this cipher the company will have to add the extra cost of publicizing the sponsorship, so that the contribution does not remain unnoticed by the broad public. Not every company that co-finances the Olympic Games is able to make the investment profitable, either in terms of sales or in terms of image building, for sometimes the name of the brand, due to the saturation of sponsors, does not penetrate into the public awareness (Wilcox, 2003, p.464). DDB Needham positions itself in the competitive advertising market as specialists in making profitable the sponsoring of Olympic Games.

Not only for private corporations are the Olympics attractive. The event is frequently used by the hosting countries to improve their telecommunication, commerce and sport infrastructure, for most of the technology, equipment and facilities built for the event will be also utilized afterwards. Apart from the material benefits for the country, the Olympic Games provide the political actors with intense media coverage, which is traditionally associated with the success of the Olympic enterprise. To win an Olympic bid is perceived by the population as a form of political success of the local or national leaders that win and host the Olympics. The popularity of such political figures literally explodes. And this explosion of popularity means in practice votes or political legitimacy. The 1992 Olympics in Barcelona were used by the ambitious Spanish politician Pasqual Maragall as a trampoline. He was then regarded as the mayor who brought the Olympic Games to Barcelona. From the mayor’s office he jumped into the regional and autonomic scene. Maragall was candidate for the office of president of the Generalitat, the governmental organ of the autonomous region of Catalonia in the north-east of Spain. Maragall won the election and became president of the Generalitat in 2002.

The ambition to host the Olympic Games can occasionally become so strong that individuals and organizations may be tempted to use strategies that fall outside legality. Bribes, in different forms and degrees, are not unusual in the selection processes. Scandals related to the corruption of some of the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) emerge every now and then in the international press. In the middle of unprecedented media euphoria due to the success of the event for the Winter Olympics of 2002, a major crisis shook the Salt Lake City hosting committee. Some of the members of this committee were accused of having provided relatives of members of the IOC with generous humanitarian grants to support athletes in underdeveloped countries. Yet, the reaction of the crisis managers of the Salt Lake City hosting committee was exemplary. After a short investigation, the committee reported to the international community that, in fact, 6 relatives of IOC members had received this kind of financial aid. The crisis management was in this case, according to Wilcox et al. (2003), the best maneuver of the whole Winter Olympics of 2002. The immediate dismissal of some of the most relevant committee directors helped save the face of the whole project. This answer to the crisis revived the integrity of the Olympic spirit in front of the international public and persuaded the sponsors that it was the right decision to invest their money in Salt Lake City.

The Bid for the 2000 Olympics

In 1993, Beijing’s bid to host the Olympic Games of 2000 was beaten by the Australian capital Sydney by only two votes. Beijing started as favorite during the final rounds, for it was the bid favored by then president of the IOC, Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch. In fact, China decided to run for the honor of hosting the event as a result of Samaranch’s insistence. For many years, the Machiavellian president of the IOC had been trying to persuade the successive Chinese governments to present a candidacy to host the Olympic Games. During the 1980’s, Samaranch spoke frequently with the leader Deng Xiaoping with this goal in mind. In 1989, He Zhenliang, one of the most relevant figures in the Chinese political class, joined the IOC after having been personally invited by Samaranch and became one of its permanent members. Still, Samaranch’s strongest good will testimony happened in 1991, when he “presented Olympic awards to the Mayor and Deputy of Beijing” (Roche, 2000, p.155).

Thus, Sydney, the final winner, was rather one of the outsiders in the hosting run. The first outcomes seemed to confirm the prognoses, for Beijing won the 3 first voting rounds. However, in the fourth and definitive round the dramatic turn happened. Sydney won by only 2 votes.

101st IOC Session, 23 September 1993, Monaco

Round	1	2	3	4
Beijing	32	37	40	43
Berlin	9	0	–	–
Istanbul	7	–	–	–
Manchester	11	13	11	–
Sydney	30	30	37	45

 

For most of the Western observers, the whole selection process came down to a battle between Beijing and the rest of the world. The decision in the dramatic fourth round, more than a decision between two cities, “seemed to turn into a Beijing or anti-Beijing vote” (Michaelis, 2001).

Despite the efforts of the Chinese bid committee and the explicit support of the president of the IOC, many of the members of this organization were not able to overcome the reticence aroused by Beijing’s candidacy.

First of all, and in spite of the governmental efforts, the Chinese bid committee was not able to persuade the IOC members of counting on the general support of Beijing’s population. Public opinion polls carried out by the Chinese mass media showed an almost unanimous public support. Over 98% of Beijing’s population was in favor of being Olympic host. Still, the Western Media constantly gave publicity to testimonies of Beijing’s citizens expressing themselves against the event. Some of those anonymous individuals feared that the costs of the organization may have had repercussions in their paychecks, something that, according to Bourdehoux (2004, p.158), apparently had happened during the celebration of the Asian Games hosted by China a few years earlier. Western mass media frequently presented critical voices of humble Chinese people wondering why a poor country like China should host such an expensive show as the Olympic Games. A rumor was circulating in the international press according to which most of the buildings in downtown Beijing – apartment buildings, offices and factories – were forced to shut down their coal-burning heaters during the four-day inspection visit of the IOC to make sure that the skies over the capital appeared clear of the emissions generated by this heating system. The Western press, giving the rumor total credibility, reported that many residents and workers of Beijing had to spend those four days in the cold Beijing winter without heating or warm water (Bourdehoux, 2004).

Another area of concern for the IOC members was the technological infrastructure. The critique of the members opposed to Beijing’s bid focused on four items:

Frequency of international flights

Environmental protection

Existing telecommunication facilities

People’s knowledge of foreign languages

Still, the most delicate issue in Beijing’s 1993 bid was the international perception of China’s political system. The worst enemy of China’s candidacy was, again, the press. The slogan of the bid committee “A More Open China Awaits the 2000 Games” was frequently presented as an “empty political slogan” (Forney, 2001). Many rumors were circulating through U.S. American and European media that the public opinion perceived as “facts”. For instance, the European press was reporting that the police had removed from Beijing’s streets citizens with mental deficiencies to improve the image of the city. One of those ill-fated people, always according to the rumor, had died as a result of the brutal police repression.

The Tiananmen Square episode of 1989 regularly appeared as a central theme in numerous articles, stories or reports in all possible media. The aggressive anti-China media coverage was especially intense during the critical week of the IOC final decision. Several stories were published about students who participated in the 1989 protest against the government and were in 1993 still in prison. Another rumor that was echoed in many media referred to an anti-corruption campaign in China that ended with the execution of hundreds of government officials. Newsweek, in its issue von January 1993, reported that China was engaged in “nothing short of an execution frenzy, with nearly 1,800 prisoners put to death in the past three months alone”.

Some of those smear campaigns were not spontaneous. Many convergent and divergent interests and ambitions are at stake in the organization of the Olympics. As it was already mentioned, the maneuvers to achieve the final goal of hosting the Games are in some cases ethically dubious. For instance, Gerard Ryle and Gary Hughes revealed in the Sydney Morning Herald a scheme designed by key Australian businessmen and government official to discredit Beijing’s candidacy when the bid of the Chinese capital appeared as front-runner in all prognoses. The public relations stratagem plotted by them was to create a grassroots movement to denounce the regular abuse of Human Rights on the part of the Chinese political machinery that had been taken place in the country for several decades. According to the report of both Australian journalists, the campaign was organized from different sites in Europe and the U.S.A., so that nobody could trace it back to Australia. Some of the Sydney Games officials responded to the article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. Although they did not unambiguously deny the existence of the scheme, they declared that the campaign had never been implemented. However, in the months previous to the final bid decision, a very intense Human Rights campaign was launched in the United States. The Chinese government frequently appeared in their reports as systematic offender against basic individual rights. According to Beder (1999), the campaign severely damaged Beijing’s aspirations to host the Olympics.

The hostility of the Western press had consequences that went beyond the sport event. After the 1993 bid decision against China, a wave of nationalism swept the whole country. The Chinese public opinion perceived the attitude of the Western press as world-wide reaction against China, rather than a reaction against the Chinese government of its political system.

The Chinese government, sensitive to the opinion climate, promised to the nation not to get involved in similar adventures for the next years and to focus on the urgent problem of reducing poverty in the country. This was the origin of the so-called “Five Years Plan”. China did not submit candidacy for the 2004 Olympics, which finally took place in Athens. But in 1998, and after the “Five Years Plan” was completed, Beijing decided to run for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Olympic Games: Symbols and Values

China does not belong to the group of countries that formed the Olympic avant-garde. In 1932, China sent for the first time some athletes to the Olympic Games celebrated in Los Angeles. At that time, the event was already very popular in most parts of the world. The publicity potential was also well known at the time. Adolf Hitler used the next Games celebrated in Berlin to organize a mega-event of unparalleled dimensions to show off to the world the social, technological and also human achievements of the National-Socialist regime. For decades, the Chinese athletes had merely been extras in the sport duels of the big stars. These pioneers of Chinese Olympic spirit did not have the opportunities of most of their rivals. Their equipment and training, as well as the infrastructure of Chinese sport facilities impaired them. China had to wait for 52 years to win its first gold medal. In the 1984 Olympic Games, also celebrated in Los Angeles, Xu Haifeng won the gold medal in pistol shooting. This can be regarded as the turning point of China’s Olympic history, for the country discovered the value of the Olympic Games as international platform for the country and also for its political system. As a result it started to systematically invest in the preparation of the athletes for the event. In this regard, China was following the lead of many others communist and socialist regimes that used Olympic sport as the most effective public relations. In just a couple of years, China emerged as one of the Olympic powers, an actual medals sweeper. Now it occupies the third rank of the total medal table (Collins, 2002). The growing significance of the Olympic Games as publicity tool is also the origin of China’s interest in hosting this event or similar ones. Before the failed bid for the 2000 Olympics, Beijing had hosted the Asian Games in 1990, which were successful from the point of view of organization and logistics and encouraged the capital of the country to run for the Games.

The progressive political liberalization that started with the presidency of Jiang Zemin had also an effect in the sphere of sports. The Chinese government realized that sport is also an effective public relations tool because it has the power to turn the spotlight on the whole country. The media relevance attracts the attention of the international public – and of course of international investors as well. Hosting the Olympics became a priority for the Chinese government. And to achieve the goal no costs were spared (Marquand, 2001). At stake was not only the hosting of the games, but also the international image of the country, and as a consequence, the individual feelings of national identity.

Public opinion polls showed clearly that China’s population was in favor of running for the Olympic bid. The citizens of the People’s Republic felt the need of international recognition, which would be guaranteed by the Olympic Games. The positive publicity generated by the event was especially longed-for by its political leaders, for the Tiananmen Square incidents had brought about a decade of public relations ignominy (Broudehoux, 2004).

The Olympic Games could act as public relations catharsis to expiate past Human Rights abuses. The symbols and values inherent to the event are supposed to confer a magic power to the people, the cities, the countries and the sponsors associated in the public mind to it. This mystique, by the way, cannot be verified with empirical evidence. Neither can the blind faith in the promotional power of the Games be supported by rational argumentation.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East-European countries and those who formed the U.S.S.R. sank in the Olympic medal table. The rest of the communist powers, according to Short (2004), “still devote much attention to the Olympic participation and medal success as a form of political substantiation” facing world public opinion.

From the very dawn of public relations, we can observe how symbols, as carriers of moral values and moral legitimacy, are the most effective instrument in this communication practice. And there is no special event that can compete, in quantity and quality of symbols, with the Olympic Games. Therefore, as a spectacle of colossal dimensions, the Games can drive the economy of the hosting countries. Opening ceremonies, with audiences of millions of people, are regarded now as extensive and effective communication oportunities (Broudehoux, 2004). China also became aware of the power of the mega-event to jump start the economy of the country with the biggest demographic power.

But economics was not China’s only motivation for hosting the Games. The obsession of liberating China from international stigma had long been one of the priorities of the Chinese diplomatic agenda (Ong, 2004). The last generations of Chinese leaders wanted the world public opinion to associate the name of the country with ideas of power, unity and modernity. And this goal went beyond the so-called Cultural Revolution or even the communist regime. The stigma endured by the nation world-wide during the 1880s, the ominous epoch known as “Century of Humiliation”, was still in the mind of China’s political leaders (Ong, 2004).

Main Obstacles

Without doubt, the United States was the country that most intensively torpedoed Beijing’s 2008 Olympic bid. The U.S.A. opposition happened in two fronts: mass media and government.

American media regularly aired supposed offenses against Human Rights in China. The political or diplomatic conflicts between the two countries were the subject of strong media coverage, too. Those conflicts, according to Hessler (2001), frequently overshadowed the information related to Beijing’s actual Olympic bid. When the endeavors of city and government were covered by the American press, the reports were mostly written in a mocking tone. Not seldom was the news about setbacks or mishaps suffered by the organizing committee or some flaws of the candidature. For instance, some stories were published in different American newspapers about how Beijing authorities tried to improve the image of the city with last minute applications of fresh-paint, or with fake-flowers and green dyed lawns during wintertime (Hessler, 2001). Likewise, the American press made fun of the government’s attempts to improve the level of English knowledge among Beijing’s people, often showing taxi drivers speaking terrible English. They also ridiculed Beijing’s plan to clean up public toilets. In general, “the city came across as over-eager, not very competent and prone to Potempkin Village tendencies” (Hessler, 2001). China’s – and Beijing’s – bad image in the American media was the main reason why David Chu, one of the strategic advisors of the bid, suggested hiring Western public relations firms to design effective communication strategies.

The U.S. government also tried to boycott Beijing’s candidacy. In March 2001, a group of U.S. American democrat and republican congressmen built a coalition with the goal of undermining Beijing’s bid. Of course, the main argument brandished by the bipartisan group of politicians was China’s “poor record on Human Rights” (Ong, 2004, p.37). This situation made the country, according to the group, unworthy of hosting the Olympics. The American congressmen feared that awarding the event to China could even aggravate the state of affairs. They stated that, to maintain order and project an image of harmony in front of the international community, the Chinese government might intensify the repression of any demonstration against the government or the political system (Ong, 2004).

Beijing’s bid was also attacked by some environmental groups. They denounced the lack of an effective Chinese policy to protect the environment and to create an environmental consciousness among the people. One of the recurrent critiques was the poor quality of Beijing’s air (Ong, 2004). Another black spot for the environmentalists were the public lavatories, which according to Broudehoux “… were a disgrace to China and seriously affected Beijing’s international image” (Broudehoux, 2004, p.182).

As another manifestation of mistrust in the Western world, some media established parallelisms and analogies with past Olympic events that had been used as propaganda tools by despotic regimes to legitimate morally dubious political goals or standpoints, and military actions. The most quoted example was, of course, Berlin 1936. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party staged the Olympic Games to show to the rest of the world the superiority of the Aryan race, the key element of his ideological program. Hitler’s goal was partially frustrated by one of the most celebrated epic achievements at the Olympics: the four gold medals won by the African-American athlete Jesse Owens. Still, the 1936 Olympics left to posterity powerful images of the national-socialist ecstasy of German masses.

The Olympic Games in Mexico 1968 were also mentioned on account of their tragic prelude. The Mexican government ferociously repressed demonstrations of thousands of students who were protesting against the economic burden originated by the Games. The students reproached the government for spending millions of dollars to organize the event while an important part of the population was suffering from famine and living in most absolute misery. Following orders of the Mexican government, the military troops sent to break up the demonstration opened fire against the students and killed hundreds of them (Broudehoux, 2004).

The last of the “infamous” Olympics mentioned in reference to Beijing’s bid was the 1980 Olympic Games celebrated in Moscow. A few months before the start of the Games, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, causing a world-wide diplomatic crisis that would lead to the boycott of the Olympic Games called for by the United States. In the Western Press, it was frequently rumored that China might have been emboldened to make a similar move toward Taiwan.

It can easily be observed that most of the attacks against Beijing’s bid were not new at all. In general, the arguments to oppose China’s candidacy were the same that caused the 2000 bid to fail. Therefore, the Chinese public relations apparatus was better prepared for the challenge than in the previous experience.

BOBICO

The Beijing Olympic Games Bid Committee, BOBICO, was responsible for organizing the details, channeling the different initiatives and integrating all efforts related to Beijing’s Olympic candidacy. Its mission was, as already mentioned, to secure the Chinese popular support and to create an international friendly atmosphere. The committee was composed of different Beijing officials. Liu Qi and Liu Jingmin, mayor and vice-mayor of the city of Beijing respectively, became president and vice-president of the bid committee. Executive president was Yuan Weimin, at that time president of the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC).

One of BOBICO’s priorities was to identify the issues that caused the unexpected 1993 debacle. The Committee singled out four of them as immediate objectives: the lack of popular support in China in general and in Beijing in particular, the poor technological infrastructure in telecommunications, the environmental pollution and people’s knowledge of foreign languages. With regard to the first issue, BOBICO designed a program to enlighten the Chinese public opinion about “Why China Should Host the Games”. Still, the main concern of the committee was to develop persuasive strategies to impress the members of the IOC.

To this end, the BOBICO officials did not hesitate to seek international help. Several international communication agencies, like the U.S. American Weber Shandwick Worldwide and the British Bell Pottinger, were approached by the committee to advise on the subject of communications strategies. The influence of both firms was crucial to convince the IOC “that granting the Games to Beijing could improve human rights in the world’s most populous nation rather than legitimize the policies of its Communist leaders” (Reuters, PR).

Another important name in the area of public relations that collaborated with BOBICO was the Australian consultant Meter Phillips. Phillips ensured the cooperation of 5 key actors in the organization of the 2000 Sydney games, which were extremely successful above all regarding environmental concern and impact. The Australian consultant made sure that they became “China’s exclusive counselors” (Forney, 2001).

Phillips, who was working for Beijing’s cause around the clock, spent an important part of his time in China. He helped the committee to choose the correct answer for all the issues that were constantly appearing in the Western media. One of those controversial topics was, for instance, the Chinese custom of eating dog meat. In some Swiss medium, a report was published about the import of frozen sperm of St. Bernards by some Chinese dog farmers “to breed quick growing canine roasters”. BOBICO officials feared that some Swiss IOC members may have protested because of the “gastronomic” use of animals that were highly cherished in their original country because of their aid in humanitarian missions. Phillips trained the Chinese speakers to compare the feelings of the Swiss people with the aversion Chinese people feel when they hear that in several European countries horse meat is used as food (Forney, 2001).

BOBICO was unceasingly active in the months previous to the IOC final decision. One of the organizing committee’s iniciatives, however, turned out to be a faux pas. The idea that was finally discarded was to stage the Beach Volleyball competition in the notorious Tiananmen Square. The act was supposed to have a high symbolic power. Yet, the initiative did never fill the IOC members with enthusiasm. Quite the reverse, some of those members recommended the BOBICO commissioners reconsider it.

Gaining Support Inside

As already mentioned, one of the weaknesses of the 2000 bid was the lack of popular enthusiasm, at least as it was perceived outside China.

The second time around, BOBICO developed a series of strategies to ensure that nobody could question the support of Beijing’s citizenship. First of all, the committee tried to enlighten the Chinese public opinion about how the Olympic Games could help improve the economy of the country, increase its international prestige and promote an image of progress. Then, it was important to nourish the feeling that it was China’s right, the right of an ancient and rapidly developing nation, to host the Olympic Games. BOBICO emphasized in its messages to Beijing’s people that the expenses generated by the event were not extravagant at all. It could rather be regarded as investment, for the infrastructure and facilities created for the event would be used in the future for the inhabitants of Beijing as university facilities, housing, or schools.

To solidify the hold of the Games in the hearts of Beijing’s citizens and refute the IOC’s complaints, the communication endeavors focused on three key areas. First of all, the motto created by the committee to circulate through the Chinese media was “People’s Olympics – for and by the People”. Second, the project was presented as High-Tech Olympics, so that the country could be reassured that the investment in technology would improve the Chinese infrastructure, above all in telecommunications. Finally, BOBICO created and sold to the internal public opinion the idea of Green Olympics. Beijing Olympic Games would be especially concerned with the environmental impact of the mega-event. And of course, the environmental policy would also improve the ecosystem of one of the most polluted cities of the planet.

Chinese media, orchestrated by the members of BOBICO, regularly carried out public opinions polls and published the positive outcomes to display the fast spread of popular support. The enthusiasm reflected in the polls was supposed to create what Paul Lazarsfeld (1944) called Band Wagon Effect. The communicators of BOBICO trusted the power of polls to generate a snowball of popular excitement. The homogeneity and unanimity of the Chinese media, where no dissonant voices were perceived, contributed to produce the illusion of unlimited popular enthusiasm (Marquand, 2001).

One of the highlights of the promotional campaign was – no doubt – the series of video vignettes about Beijing directed by Zhang Yimou (Lee, 2003). The director had been internationally acclaimed by Western public and critics for movies like Raise the Red Lantern or Red Sorghum. Yet, in China, the director frequently had troubles with the political authorities because his movies criticized and mocked Chinese society and the country’s political regime (Ong, 2004). To have won for the Olympic cause one of the most critical intellectuals of the country – and one highly respected by Western intellectual elites in addition – was also a very effectivestrategic move. For the gesture of the government sent the message that, in fact, the Chinese government was extending the limits of individual and civil freedoms.

Still, the Internet was the medium used with most intensity – and most effectively – to gain national support and generate the Band Wagon effect. The official Web site of Beijing’s bid was being constantly updated with information about the activities organized by those groups that supported the candidacy. In the months previous to the final decision in July 2001, the official Web site stated: “It is the aspirations of both Beijing residents and the Chinese people to share the Olympic spirit, take part in the Olympic affairs and host the Olympic Games” (Lee, 2003, p.68). The statement was intended to have the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The side hosted several opinion and participation forums where Chinese citizens who identified themselves as students, peasants, soldiers or workers expressed their enthusiasm with the Olympic Games in different ways, even with poems (Lee, 2003).

With this combination of different strategies and channels, Beijing’s bid committee reached its final goal: to involve practically everyone, to gain the domestic support from both relevant figures of the political, intellectual or artistic Chinese life, who were supposed to act as opinion leaders, and the broad mass of anonymous citizens (Ong, 2004). Chinese media gave generous publicity to the promotion activities sponsored by the numerous “service groups”. Thousands of Beijing citizens, for instance, took their bicycles for a ride to Tiananmen Square during the visit of the committee members. On most of the bicycles hung a banner with the motto of Beijing’s candidacy: “I Do My Part”. Children were also encouraged to participate in the Olympic spirit and effort. An exhibit of children paintings about the Games was organized at the Yanhuang Museum on the occasion of the IOC visit to the candidate city. To impress its members, Beijing students created a 500,000 piece domino effect that showed the rings of the Olympic banner, as well as the initials of all the committee members. Fruit farmers of rural regions enthusiastically contributed to the Olympic spirit, too. They wrote with their apples Chinese characters to express their support to the candidacy. Even public prayers were offered by Beijing’s Taoist population in support of Beijing’s bid.

Beijing 2008 Olympics were sold to the Chinese nation as “People’s Olympics”, the main motto of the campaign. The goal of Beijing’s Olympic Action Plan, the name of BOBICO’s comprehensive communication strategy, was to create the popular feeling that every single citizen could and should participate in the preparation for the Games. “I Do My Part” was the name selected by the committee for the campaign that was launched to ask for public contributions in the form of slogans, architectonic ideas, songs, logos, etc. The campaign fulfilled a double strategic function. In addition to the manifest purpose of creating popular fervor around the Olympic Games, the people’s active role also enhanced their identification with the political system (Ong, 2004). The popular enthusiasm with the Games could also help spoil criticism against the political regime and its leaders.

Gaining International Support

BOBICO, above all through the official Web site, used the same strategy of active participation to create a community of International Friends of Beijing’s bid. The forums hosted by the Web site welcomed ideas from citizens of any part of the planet. The potential interactivity of the new medium was intelligently used again for PR purposes.

Facing international public, the communication apparatus of BOBICO preferred to be on safe ground and avoided experimenting with new tendencies in the communication field. They relied on the well known effectiveness of what Wilcox (2003, p.452) calls “the mystique of personality”. Many celebrities, local and international, were gained for Beijing’s cause. Some of them were opinion leaders with a broad circle of influence, like, for instance, the Catholic Bishop of Beijing or the already mentioned filmmaker Zhang Yimou. Numerous celebrities from culture and show business backed Beijing’s candidacy. Such diverse personalities as the popular action actor Jackie Chan, a Hong Kong native, or the star tenor Luciano Pavarotti participated in promotional events. Beijing’s bid also ensured the support of sport celebrities, like the then-president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, or the Olympic champion and Sydney’s heroin Cathy Freeman. Some relevant Chinese names in the sport sphere, such as Fu Mingxia, three-time gold winner in women’s diving, or Xie Jun, women’s chess world champion, also appeared in Chinese media and local events backing Beijing’s aspiration of hosting the Olympics.

The deficit of foreign languages known to the Chinese population, one of the weak spots of the failed 2000 bid, was also approached during the preliminaries of the 2008 bid. In May 1999, the vice-mayor of Beijing announced state plans to help Beijing’s citizens learn the English language. The majority of the capital’s newspapers contributed to the endeavor. Their readers regularly found lists of useful words to maintain basic conversations with English-speaking people or to give them elemental directions. The goal was to make the best impression among visitors, above all among the representatives of Western media, who had the power to spread the image of a modern and cosmopolitan China (Broudehoux, 2004).

From the very moment China decided to launch Beijing’s candidacy for the 2008 Olympics, an intense “facelift” campaign of the city started. In addition to the $20 million budget intended for this end, the bid committee recruited an important contingent of volunteers who enthusiastically contributed to the effort, above all during the critical weeks before the visit of the IOC members: “According to official figures, in the weeks prior to the visit, a total surface area of 26 million square meters was covered with a fresh coat of paint. Highway guardrails were whitewashed, the visible façades of housing projects were painted in bright colors” (Broudehoux, 2004). The bid committee paid painful attention to every small detail. Even the green areas of Tiananmen Square, as already mentioned, were green-dyed (Broudehoux, 2004). No flaw was allowed to damage the whole picture of the city. The communication people in charge were aware that opinion formation does not always follow rational patterns, that small and marginal details might have influenced the perception of the whole and finally contributed to create a more negative impression.

Beijing’s mass media unanimously exhorted their readers to be amiable with foreign visitors. These appeals became more frequent and intense when the visit of the IOC members approached. To this end, the English language became China’s bond with the rest of the world. The “Friendly People” campaign paid special attention to the taxi drivers, who actually constitute a kind of cross-section of the population that foreign visitors meet in every city of the world. In this strategy, again, the communication professionals’ obsession with details becomes evident. According to Broudehoux (2004, p.198), thousands of taxi drivers had the opportunity to take English lessons to improve their communication skills. Others received free cassettes to practice a couple of sentences with simple structures and propagandist function, such as “Beijing’s traffic is getting better”, or “pollution is a global problem”. When the IOC members were visiting the city, the climax of the campaign, Beijing’s radio stations amiably – but insistently – reminded the taxi drivers the necessity of being friendly with their foreign customers (Broudehoux, 2004).

Some analysts thought the Chinese strategic communication model to be “old-fashioned”, although they had to admit its effectiveness (Lee, 2003). Other authors found the communication approach unusual in a communist country because of the “frank acknowledgment of its shortcomings” (Collins, 2002). And in fact, it was this straightforward recognition of the weaknesses of the bid – and the political system in general – which lent special credibility to the official announcements and declarations of goodwill to correct the existing abuses within the political system. The message that the Olympics Games were the best chance to open China to the rest of the world and to improve the life conditions and civil freedoms of its people favorably impressed both the world public opinion and the members of the IOC.

Besides the activities, events and programs staged by BOBICO to directly promote Beijing’s bid, China’s government decided to increase the visibility of the country as soon as they decided to run as a candidate for hosting the 2008 Games. China organized a series of events that apparently had nothing to do with the Olympics. For instance in 1999, one year after the official decision of presenting the bid, the Chinese government staged a conference in Beijing on “Promoting the World’s Understanding of China”. Another highlight of Chinese international propaganda took place in Paris, also in 1999. The city of Paris, in collaboration with the Chinese embassy in France, organized the “Paris Chinese Culture Week” at the Unesco Headquarters in he French capital. The motto of the cultural week was “China Marching into the Twenty-First Century”. The announced goal of these events was to promote tourism. Still, the international presence of China prepared the world public opinion – above all the Western public opinion, the most critical concerning China’s political system – to kindly embrace Beijing’s Olympic bid.

Issues and BOBICO’s Handling Strategies

The most delicate issue for China’s aspiration of hosting the Games was, no doubt, the Human Rights records in the country. The Western Press, as already mentioned, was subjecting China to fierce scrutiny in this regard. Any news that denounced abuses against Human Rights in the country was eagerly covered and widely amplified.

The communicational approach of the committee was, at least for the standards of a communist country, unusual due to its transparence and humility. In contrast to the obscurantist communication policy of former socialist regimes, above all the U.S.S.R., that tried to hide whatever might have damaged its image in the international public eye, the Chinese professional communicatiors realized that the Western public opinion expects and demands informative transparence. The idea is not new, though. In our historical journey, we could see how Ivy L. Lee, in the very dawn of the profession, discovered the pragmatic value of transparence not as goal in itself, but as a means to construct credibility, and thus, to enhance image. Lee used this ground-breaking communication style to save the reputation of the Rockefeller family when the muckraking press was tearing it apart after the infamous Ludlow massacre.

Neither the representative of the Chinese government, nor the BOBICO officials tried to deny the country’s deficit concerning Human Rights. Liu Jingmin, for instance, vice-mayor of Beijing and a high rank BOBICO official, acknowledged that on this subject “China falls short of world standards”. However, he also expressed his conviction that the Olympic Games were the opportunity the country needed “to promote the Human Rights movement of China and the World” (Marquand, 2001). The deputy director of Beijing Olympics Bid Committee addressed the criticism against the Chinese political system, and also recognized the need of improvements. Still, he also highlighted the progress made by the country in last decades (Marquand, 2001). In general, the informative candor of the spokespeople of both the government and the bid committee strengthen the credibility of Beijing’s candidacy. Ivy L. Lee’s old formula worked very effectively, again.

Some isolated incidents ocurred during the bid process, which might have escalated to threatening crises for the Olympic cause, required resolute communication strategies, too. One of those incidents, totally beyond China’s control or responsibility, was the scandalous episode with the U.S. American spy plane. The political antagonism of both countries became more acute as a consequence of the collision of a U.S. spy plane with a Chinese flight fighter on April 1, 2001. The crew of the American plane was taken into custody and finally liberated when, after 11 days of tension, the American government issued a public apology. The incident was caused by the American spy plane, this was clear from the very beginning. The Chinese government did not spare honors to the Chinese pilot killed in the crash and his family. However, Chinese officials preferred to avoid a diplomatic crisis with the Unted States. A direct confrontation might have caused a rhetorical media battle that would have damaged Beijing’s position in the Olympic race.

Another issue that frequently attracted the attention of Western media was the political status of the Falun Gong sect. The members of this group were portrayed as pacific and spiritual people who demonstrated – likewise in a pacific way – against the Chinese government. Newsweek reported that between 3 and 15 Falun Gong practitioners had died or committed suicide within a few weeks in a labor camp. Meter Phillips and his team coached the bid committee officials how to deal with the subject. First of all, Phillips recommended avoid the “evil cult” epithet that was normally used by government speakers to refer to the sect (Forney, 2001). The communication strategy dealing with this subject was, in general, to trivialize the issue in the media. Their sometimes ironic answers to the Falun Gong questions tried to distract the attention and thus, to avoid that the topic was taken seriously by the international public. For instance Liu Jingmin, when asked about the repression against the sect members, calmed down the Western journalist with the diplomatic answer: “Even Falun Gong members can come [to the games] if they’re athletes” (Newsweek, 1993, January).

The most serious of the obstacles in Beijing’s way was perhaps the resolution approved by the U.S. House of Representatives against China hosting the Olympics. The House Committee on International Relations issued a resolution (House Resolution 601) against Beijing’s candidacy based on the country’s poor Human Rights record. The procedure was, as a matter of fact, unusual, even contrary to the statutes and policies of the IOC. However, several American congressmen thought it to be salient to express their position through this official channel. China’s answer occurred, as it is usual in such cases, via diplomacy. It was the Chinese ambassador in Washington, Yang Jiechi, who articulated China’s official answer against the U.S. Congress resolution. Yang Jiechi protested against the irregularity of the procedure, for the IOC is an organism independent of states, nations or governments: “You are probably aware that it is entirely under the jurisdiction of the International Olympic Committee to judge whether a city is suitable for the Games. That choice rests with the IOC and IOC alone… No individual organization has the right to influence the IOC on the matter”. The U.S. action, according to Yang, constituted “a gross interference in the internal affairs and inherent rights of the IOC” (Snow, 2001). Of course, the Chinese communciation apparatus made sure that the contents of the Chinese ambassador’s letter were aired by the most relevant media in Europe and the United States. At the end, the American intrusion, plus China’s graceful response, rather contributed to make the Beijing option more solid and popular.

On the whole, Beijing’s bid committee created an effective logistical system that was able to accurately monitor the national and the international opinion climate. They also scrutinized the most influential Western news sources to anticipate potential crises and face them with the correct arguments and tools.

Conclusion

As a matter of fact, there were vested interests in favor of Beijing’s candidacy to host the 2008 Olympic Games. According to Grigg (2002), the former president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was the first advocate of Beijing’s bid. He must have been under pressure for many years from sponsors interested in opening the Chinese market – of dizzying dimensions – to their products. In addition to this economic interest, other arguments spoke in favor of Beijing candidacy. First of all, the Olympic Games had only taken place twice in Asian countries: in Tokyo in 1964, and in Seoul 1988. Moreover, the IOC wanted to take distance from the model established by the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, which made history as the Coca-Cola Olympics. The intention of the Committee was to limit the commercial side of the Games, which also spoke for Beijing.

Still, such favorable factors do not reduce the merits of the BOBICO’s communication strategy.

The first action of the committee was to analyze the possible causes of the 2000 bid failure and establish the right communication strategies to neutralize them. The four issues identified by the committee and on which they focused their communicative efforts were: popular support, deficient technological infrastructure, Human Rights record, and environmental deterioration.

To secure the support of Beijing’s and China’s population, BOBICO launched an enlightenment campaign in practically all state media. The objective of the campaign was to dissipate the people’s fear that the immense cost of the Games’ organization could fall on their shoulders. Beijing’s citizenship had to perceive the event as an opportunity to improve the economy of both the city and the country and to develop a technological infrastructure in telecommunications and sport facilities that would be available for the people after the Games. Opinion polls were regularly published in every media that showed the high level of popular support. The polls had the function of keeping the enthusiasm alive and generating a bandwagon effect. The committee exploited all the interactive potential of Internet to make real the motto of Beijing’s bid: “People’s Olympics – for and by the People”. BOBICO’s official Web site constantly invited every single citizen to send his or her ideas and feedback, and then, also to create the sense that almost all citizens were shaping the candidacy.

The new medium, Internet, was also successfully used to address international audiences. Foreign visitors were able to participate in the public forums hosted by the bid Web-site, too. The community of “International Friends” created by those interactive internet tools was a very effective argument to convince IOC members of the popularity of Beijing’s candidacy.

On the subject of technology, environment and Human Rights, BOBICO’s strategy was to turn around the discourse and use the supposed weaknesses as arguments in favor of Beijing. First of all, and perhaps due to the influence of the Western strategic communication agencies that were advising them, the committee opted for an absolute informative transparency. Instead of hiding the possible issues that might have damaged Beijing’s interests, BOBICO’s overall strategy was to emphasize how hosting the Olympic Games could help the country heal deficiencies in the system of political and civil freedoms, stop the environmental deterioration and improve the technological infrastructure of the country.

Finally, BOBICO’s communication machine was carefully monitoring the process in order to identify potential crisis situations that might have turned the world public opinion, and thus the attitude of the IOC members, against Beijing’s bid. This intense scrutiny allowed those in charge of the communication policy to find timely and proper answers to the systematic attacks launched by some Western media and, above all, the U.S.A. government.

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