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CNN Live Sunday
Olympic Committee to Pick Site for 2008 Olympic Games Friday
Aired July 08, 2001 - 17:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Overseas now, members of the International Olympic Committee are arriving in Moscow for a meeting which will lead up to Friday's decision on which city will be chosen to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The five final cities on the short list now: Beijing, Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka.
Beijing is considered by many to be the leading contender, but the city's bid is controversy, because of China's human rights record. Supporters of Beijing's bid say the Olympics would promote openness and international scrutiny of the government's behavior there; opponents say awarding the games would be condoning repression.
So, does Beijing have the best chance or will another city get the nod? For more on that now, we are joined by Howard Chua-Eoan who was assistant managing editor of "TIME" magazine, and the magazine has an article in this week's issue about all this.
Mr. Chua-Eoan, thank you for joining us.
HOWARD CHUA-EOAN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: My pleasure.
FRAZIER: Handicappers are saying that Beijing is the favorite right now. Does that sit right with you?
CHUA-EOAN: Yes, that's about right. Beijing lost its last bid by two votes to Sydney. The feeling now is that the IOC wants to do something with a sense of history to it. And giving it to Beijing is likely to be -- to fulfill that goal.
FRAZIER: This is the world's most populous country, has never hosted the games. There is a sense that sooner or later, the games belong there.
CHUA-EOAN: That was what Beijing tried to impress upon the IOC the last time around, that they deserved the games. This time around, they approach it in a different way. They -- they are trying to prove the point that Beijing is good enough for the games, that it's well enough prepared.
And the interesting thing this time is that a number of dissidents who the last time around were adamant against the games, are now coming out actually to say -- repeating what the government is saying, that this will help integrate China into the world's political and economic sort of structure. FRAZIER: In other words, between now and the actual staging of the games, the world will be paying a lot of attention to what happens there?
CHUA-EOAN: Exactly. And so, Beijing will have to make sure that it works with the ideas that are part of the Olympic ideal.
FRAZIER: Well, that's an argument in favor of it. One against it is more about the athletes themselves. There is an awful lot of smog there, as you know, and the dust that blows in from the Gobi Desert. Tough to compete in that.
CHUA-EOAN: Right. Beijing has promised to invest about $12 billion in environmental improvements, which is one of its ways of trying to entice the athletes and make it a much more congenial place for sports.
But there are other problems that Beijing faces. Its human rights records, while it's a little bit more subtle this time about repression, it's not absolutely clear how stable the political situation in China is going to be by the time the Olympics are held. There will be a mandatory transition of power by then, and every time China has had transitions of power, they have never really been smooth.
FRAZIER: So then, in other words, the Olympic Committee could vote to give the games to a city and a country that could be totally different by the time the games are staged?
CHUA-EOAN: That could do that. That's always -- that's been the problem now. That's the hovering crisis over Athens in 2004, the IOC is worried that Greece will not be prepared for the games. It may be too late to move the games somewhere else, but Beijing could face the same situation in 2008.
FRAZIER: Always very political, these decisions. Very quickly now, the second is Paris, which people think would be a very congenial place to stage the games, but a lot of games are being held in Europe already -- as you said, Athens.
CHUA-EOAN: Athens will just have held it -- will hold it in 2004. Toronto is a good -- it's very well prepared. It's very -- the amenities are terrific. The problem there is that there -- it's a civic quarrel over who is going to pay the bill if it does get the Olympics.
FRAZIER: You have public and private finding both. Well, it's a complicated vote. We will hear about this for the entire week leading up to it, and we are grateful for these early insights. Howard Chua- Eoan, thank you for joining us.
CHUA-EOAN: Thank you.
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