The Guardian: Don't be fooled - China is not squeaky clean

In one respect, at least, the rulers of the People's Republic of China have been astonishingly successful. After gunning down thousands of unarmed civilians in 1989, the Chinese government has managed to become utterly respectable again. None of the murderers was ever called to account. It is still the same repressive government. Its record on human rights is still appalling. All potential challenges to its monopoly on power have been crushed. And what foreign pressure there ever was has been lifted. It's as though Tiananmen never happened. [...]

[...] What should one make of famous architects from Europe, the US and Japan competing to build a new headquarters for CCTV, the state television company? The competition was held last week. Among those who vied for the $600m (£385m) project are such luminaries as Rem Koolhaas, Dominique Perrault, Toyo Ito, and the New York skyscraper specialists SOM. The winner will be announced next month.

Architectural competitions are not a new thing in China. There was one not long ago for a Beijing opera house. Since it has been the policy of the Chinese government to virtually raze the old capital and build a brand new one in its place, larger and more grandiose in scale, there is a lot of work for architects. According to most projections, only a fraction of Beijing as it was in the 1970s will still stand in 2008.

Unless one takes the view that all business with China is evil, there is nothing reprehensible about building an opera house in Beijing, or indeed a hotel, a hospital, a university or even a corporate headquarters. But state television is something else. CCTV is the voice of the party, the centre of state propaganda, the organ which tells a billion people what to think.

Now it is true that architects are often drawn to power. Le Corbusier tried to interest the Vichy regime and Stalin in his projects. Philip Johnson was a bit of an amateur black-shirt. Before leaving Germany, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe were too close to the Nazis. One can see why. To build on a grand scale you need authority and a lot of money. And architects with a utopian bent, who dream of transforming not just skylines but the way we live, are natural suckers for totalitarianism. And, indeed, suckers for capitalist excess. It all depends on the client.

There are, none the less, limits. It is hard to imagine a cool European architect in the 1970s building a television station for General Pinochet without losing a great deal of street cred. And though it might be cool to be anti-American, I cannot imagine a Koolhaas, say, or a Perrault wanting to build a television station for Saddam Hussein. What, then, is it about China that makes it OK? Let us assume it is not simple greed, or lust for power.

One thing is the nature of Chinese propaganda, which still pays lip service to socialism as well as third-world nationalism. Yahoo!, among other western computer-software providers, has just agreed to obey Chinese censorship rules. The US Company will help to provide a Chinese network, which promotes “good morals and a socialist and traditional Chinese civilisation". Anything the government views as hostile to these good things will be censored. So potential big bucks can be squared nicely with an unblemished conscience. Who isn't in favour of traditional Chinese civilisation, or good morals?

[...]

All these arguments are half true, but contain one huge lie. China is not remotely a socialist society. It is, in fact, one of the most rightwing countries in the world today, more rightwing even than Chile under Pinochet, where there were still pockets of organised activity not under the junta’s control. China now has raw capitalism, but no independent trade unions, let alone political parties.

While still, on occasion, mouthing a few Marxist slogans, the party bosses operate like corrupt chief executives, doling out money, concessions and franchises to cronies, family members and favoured minions.

There are benefits, to be sure. Business in the large coastal cities is thriving. Those who know how to operate in China's casino capitalism are getting richer. The educated urban middle class is doing all right. But huge numbers of workers and peasants are being exploited, thrown out of work or driven out of their homes. Instead of free speech and democracy, there is propaganda. That is what CCTV is for. And that is what our architects are helping to maintain. It is not a noble enterprise.