Beijing's Olympic Bid Success
One of the slogans for Beijing's 1993 bid for hosting the Olympic Games was: "Give Beijing a chance and the world will receive a happy surprise," a phrase exhibiting China's anxiety about success. To Chinese people, hosting the Olympic Games was particularly significant. For many years, the Chinese nation was described in humiliating terms as the "sick man of East Asia." The first time Chinese sportsmen were seen at the Olympic Games was in 1932 and the first gold China won was in 1984. In 1990, the 86-year-old Deng Xiaoping said, "After the Asian Games, we may go for the Olympics, which will revitalize our nation and boost our economy." On July 13, 2001, at the moment when Juan Antonio Samaranch announced Beijing's success, all Chinese delegates present applauded in excitement, and Beijing residents held a carnival on the streets.
Entry into the WTO
Entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) marked China's official membership of the "economic united nations." To attain entry, China made incessant efforts for 15 years, a very rare case in trade talks of any kind worldwide. When China was finally accepted as a member, both its GDP and foreign trade ranked seventh in the world, and for eight years in a row it topped all developing countries in attracting foreign investment. China and the WTO need each other, said high-ranking WTO officials more than once. The WTO needs new balance and vitality from China.
Tang-style Suits
After state leaders wore Tang-style suits at the invitation of their Chinese hosts at the 2001 APEC meeting in Shanghai, the style became a fashion, and Chinese people took great pride in seeing Chinese elements in international fashion.
2002
Blogs
Fang Xingdong and Wang Junxiu finalized the Chinese translation for "blog" in 2002. With a big splash, they launched their website on the Internet, an act described by a well-known media outlet as, "A challenge by individuals to the conventional press." However, the number of blog readers was limited that year, reaching no more than 10,000. The figure jumped after a female college teacher published her sex life in her blog in 2003. Since then, the number of blogs of all sorts has exploded, and they have been established by scholars, movie stars, pop singers and ordinary citizens. To increase their popularity, some celebrities hire excellent writers to pen their blogs, while less known people hope to gain fame through an Internet presence. By the end of 2007, the number of Chinese blogs had reached 72.82 million, with 47 million writers – one in every four Internet users in China. For most users, blogs are a vehicle to express themselves and pour out their heart. In some ways, blogs have pulled "writing" out of the ivory tower and put it in everyone's hands.
Intellectuals' Sense of Justice
After years of studies, college teacher Liu Shuwei was alarmed to discover a prestigious listed company was actually nothing but a set of bank loans. She exposed it in an article and made a nationwide splash. Although she was sued and her safety was threatened, she refused to be silenced. Every cent of common people's savings, she asserted, was earned through blood and sweat, and it should not end up this way. What she exposed, she said, was as broad as daylight to anyone familiar with economics, but for a long period of time, out of financial concerns, nobody was willing to uncover it. Corruption was rampant among Chinese scholars, she lamented, and some had been willingly reduced to being dependent on interest groups, depriving as a result ordinary people of the information they are entitled to. For her courageous act, Liu was voted by the public as a figure who "moved China" that year.
2003
The Asian Development Bank estimated China suffered RMB 17.9 billion in losses due to SARS, shaving 1.3 percent off GDP that year. SARS happened within a month of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao taking office, and their response would surely influence China's future. Two high-ranking officials, Zhang Wenkang, vice minister of the Public Health, and Meng Xuenong, vice mayor of the Beijing municipal government, were removed from office for covering up the disease. Since then, high-ranking officials being held responsible for neglecting their duties has become part of Chinese political life. "An information revolution," some media claim, has taken place, in which the central government is determined to publish any information concerning public safety and health in a timely and accurate manner. Following SARS, China quickly began preparation for formulating laws in relation to this. In 2003, China drafted the Emergency Law to establish a legal framework for emergency situations.
Shenzhou-V Launch
The success of the Shenzhou-V mission in 2003 marked the realization of China's age-old dream of space flight. After the U.S. and Russia, China was the third nation to send a man into space. Yang Liwei, the Chinese astronaut on Shenzhou-V, became a national hero.
The Sun Zhigang Incident
The death of "small potato" Sun Zhigang in Guangzhou ended the detention policy China had practiced for 50 years in its cities. Under rules passed in 1982 concerning migrants in the cities, vagrants and beggars would be sent back to where they came from, and migrant workers had to possess a temporary residential card issued by the local public security office, or they would likely be dealt with as vagrants or beggars. This meant being rounded up and placed in a detention house, a place that supposedly helped them get back home. However, the reality was another story. Rough-handed government workers in these houses often blackmailed the detained. Sun Zhigang, a new college graduate, was a new comer to Guangzhou and had not been able to take out a temporary residential card. Also because he failed to produce his ID, he was taken away and put into a detention house, where he was tortured to death. Following this event, three doctors in law studies sent a petition to the State Council, asking to abolish the current detention rule, which, they said, was against the constitution. Before the year ended, the central government put an end to the rule. Sun Zhigang, with his death, drew public attention to the legal rights of disadvantaged social groups in the cities.