Touchdown in Beijing and I feel like I’m watching my own personal opening ceremonies. The airport is massive and virtually spotless. Headed to the hotel, I’m whisked past row upon row of new skyscrapers, their twinkling lights seem somehow synchronized. It’s more than three weeks after the Olympics, and the air is still easy to breathe.
Its hard not to be in awe of Beijing, but I’m reminded of what one security expert I met in Hawaii told me. He spoke about Beijing’s "Potemkin skies" and how they could pose problems for China going forward. The blue horizon doesn’t come easy here, it has requires factories to shutter and people to stop driving. Imagine Americans being told to stay home from work and stay off of the roads! How long can all that last? What happens when it ends? Will the Chinese put up with choking smog for themselves again after foreign visitors got something better?
I can see more of this country’s contradictions once more while walking the capital city’s Sanlitun bar street. There are two kinds of young Chinese here, those dressed like rock stars drinking and carrying on inside the tiny pubs and those in army uniforms patrolling almost every corner. Right now, they all live side by side, but each group seems to be waiting for a stiff breeze to send the country off in one direction or the other. The question is, will that gust of wind be clean or polluted?
