China: 2008 in Review

In 2008, the world saw both impressive demonstrations of China’s rising power and capabilities as well as increasingly bolder and complex challenges to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over the nation.

In May, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Sichuan Province that left over 87,000 people dead or missing. The central government went all out in its disaster response with Premier Wen Jiabao flying to the affected area to personally oversee relief efforts. Foreign observers praised the massive scale of the logistical operation and its overall effectiveness as well as the government’s openness in disseminating information and accepting foreign assistance.

The fact that one of the largest-scale Olympic games could still be held just three months after the earthquake struck further underlined the resilience and governance capabilities of the CCP. On August 8, the Beijing Olympics opened with a display of fireworks and choreographed performances whose mammoth scale took the breath of virtually the entire global audience. Combined with the eye-catching architectural designs of Olympic venues, the surprisingly successful effort to reduce air pollution in one of the most polluted cities in the world, and beating out the United States to capture the most gold medals while coming in a close second in the overall medal count, Chinese could hold their heads high and show the world that they had, indeed, arrived, and they were a force to be respected and reckoned with.