The Rise of China in Hosting World-Class Games: From the 1990 Asian Games to the Hangzhou Asian Games

2023-09-25 16:00:00

The Hangzhou Asian Games kicked off, and the national team topped the list of medals. The Hong Kong team had a good start and won 3 gold medals (at the time of writing). The results are gratifying.

Watching the opening ceremony of the Asian Games brought a lot of emotion. Digital people and torchbearers jointly lit the “Qianjiang Tide” of the torch tower to light up the night sky of the Hangzhou Asian Games.

The opening ceremony of this year’s Asian Games is different from the style of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This time it has both Jiangnan delicacy and digital characteristics. Looking back 33 years ago, when China hosted the Asian Games for the first time, the difficulty was completely different from what it is now.

In 1989, the June Fourth Incident occurred in China, which was under foreign sanctions. In addition, China’s national strength was far less than it is today. It was really difficult to host the Asian Games in 1990.

Mainland China’s “Beijing Daily” public account “Chang’an Street Governor” reviewed this process. On July 3, 1990, Deng Xiaoping inspected the Asian Games venues and said a few famous words: “Some people always think that the moon in foreign countries is round. I think the moon in China is also round, maybe even rounder.”

Comparing the 1990 Beijing Asian Games and the Hangzhou Asian Games 33 years later, Deng Xiaoping’s sigh is even more evocative. It was indeed difficult for China to host the Asian Games at that time. In the 1990s, China had only been reforming and opening up for 12 years. The country’s GDP was only one-tenth that of the United States. The construction of the capital Beijing was still relatively backward, and its sports venues were incomparable to those of Asian powers such as Japan.

To successfully host the Asian Games, the first issue is funding.

Wu Shaozu, then executive chairman of the Beijing Asian Games Organizing Committee, recalled that at that time, hosting an Asian Games required 2.14 billion yuan, but the central government only provided 850 million yuan, leaving a gap of 1.29 billion yuan. Faced with a huge gap, we might only raise funds across the country. From charity performances by artists, auctions of painters, to donations from entrepreneurs, the people generously donated money, and finally solved the funding problem of the Asian Games.

The second is the difficulty of construction.

A large number of venues have to be built in a short period of time. Even if all the venues are worked overtime, there is still a question whether they can be completed as scheduled.

However, China has used miraculous speed to complete the massive construction of the Asian Games in just over three years from design to construction, including the International Olympic Center, which was also built within the deadline and became a new landmark in Beijing. China has now become an “infrastructure maniac”, and China’s high-speed genes have long been revealed.

The third is the advantage of the system.

Although China is still quite poor and backward, and under the pressure of foreign sanctions, it can still successfully host the 1990 Asian Games. The key is an efficient system. Deng Xiaoping said at the time: “Such a good Asian Games building was built in a short period of time by concentrated efforts, and it was done so well, which proves that socialism is good. Socialism can concentrate its efforts and can accomplish all difficult things.” This is what is called “concentrating efforts to accomplish big things.” By gathering the strength of the whole country and focusing on development-related projects, we can get things done. This was true in the past, and it is even more true now.

From the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, and then to this year’s 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, China has rich experience in hosting world-class sports games. China is now the world’s second largest economy. If we use the “purchasing power parity” indicator of actual output capacity, China’s economic output has surpassed the United States as early as 2014, becoming the world’s largest.

With the Asian Games held in Hangzhou this year, there is no need to worry regarding the hardware construction. The software used is also world-class. The content of technology is getting higher and higher, the proportion of greenness is getting larger and larger, and the functions are getting stronger and stronger. Not only are they far exceeding the level of the year , also world-class.

Watching the opening ceremony of the International Games hosted by China is indeed a sigh of relief as if Hedong has been in Hedong for 30 years and Hexi has been in Hexi for 30 years. It only took China more than 30 years to go from catching up to surpassing!

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