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It is estimated that China spent at least RMB300 billion (US$43.7 billion) for staging the Olympic games. Given the volume of its economy, including its GDP that reached RMB24.7 trillion (US$3.43 trillion) in 2007 and given that the money had been spent over a period of seven years, RMB300 billion (US$43.7 billion) is an affordable price tag.
In addition to the Bird’s Nest and other sports venues, the hefty bill was mainly for infrastructure projects such as Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport, new subway lines and projects related to improving the environment, all of which are likely to benefit Beijing in the long-term.
While the Water Cube – the national aquatics centre, is believed built from donations received from overseas Chinese, the Beijing Capital International Airport Company Ltd, listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is supposed to have funded the T3 airport project. So, it seems, a significant part of the RMB300 billion (US$43.7 billion) outlay was provided by the Chinese government.
For example, after 2001, when China won the bid to host the Olympics, the State General Administration of Sport - the governmental agency in charge of sports directly under the State Council, which also supervises the All-China Sports Federation and the Chinese Olympic Committee, saw its annual budget increased to US$714 million from US$428 million the year before, according to a recent article in Time magazine.
To put China’s “gold medal strategy” – which was pricey, for the 52 gold medals that its athletes won at the Olympics, in comparative perspective, one has to look at government spending on public goods like science and education. In 2006, the most recent year in which data is available, the Chinese government’s budgetary expenditure on science and technology and education was RMB169 billion (US$21.2 billion) and RMB478 billion (US$60 billion) respectively.
The reality behind what seems to be, at first glance, a much higher expenditure on sports than on either technology or education, is disturbing. Although China’s revised “Law on Compulsory Education” took effect on Sept. 1, 2006, its stipulation that students receiving a nine-year compulsory education be exempted from tuition and other charges was not implemented until the fall of 2008, after the Olympics.
Indeed, China’s failure to keep its promise, made 20 years ago when it promulgated the law, to provide a nine-year compulsory education that would be “free of tuition” to all primary and middle school students, puts it in the company of less than 30 such countries worldwide. Furthermore, China’s expenditure on education as a percentage of its GDP has been less than 3 percent for the past 15 years, which is amongst the lowest in the world.
Meantime, China’s spending on basic research, as a percentage of the total expenditure on research and development has been around 5 percent for the past 15 years. During the same time, the government’s share in the expenditure on science and technology has been less than a quarter of the total. So, shifting the financial responsibility to enterprises may prove counterproductive, making China’s innovation push unsustainable in the long run.
In contrast, by way of having the unique right to raise money through lottery ticket sales, the State General Administration of Sports has consistently outperformed the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation in terms of money allocated to basic research. As one of only two government agencies allowed to raise money through lottery ticket sales – the other is the Ministry of Civil Affairs for the purpose of social welfare provision – the sports administration sold US$5.1 billion worth of lottery tickets in 2007 alone, with about 17 percent of the proceeds going to its programs.
Given this information and the fact that science and education are geared toward a much larger population than the elite athlete-focused “gold medal strategy,” one can only conclude that China has not spent enough on the institutions critical to its future economic competitiveness and social development.
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(Cong Cao is a senior research associate with the Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce at the State University of New York. He received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1997 and has worked at the University of Oregon and the National University of Singapore. Dr. Cao is interested in the social studies of science and technology with a focus on China. ©Copyright Cong Cao.)
