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10 March 2005

Olympic construction in Beijing leaves thousands homeless

Advance notice and compensation invisible

by Spencer Anderson
Sports Editor


Labourers working in a construction site in Beijing. Peter Parks AFP/LJH

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9 March 2005
Eye spy: Beijing

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Beijing 2008

Human Rights Watch

It was the middle of the night when the bulldozers came. Scores of families living in the building woke to the sounds of the courtyard wall being flattened in the name of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Governments and human rights organisations across the world are hoping that the Olympic Games will open up China and further the progress of individual freedom, but behind this facade lurks a sinister element to the Olympic hysteria that is getting little attention.

The demolition and relocation of homes to make way for the city’s Olympic village has been occurring at a staggering rate, leaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese people homeless and frequently without sufficient compensation.

“The demolition and evictions are nothing new,” said Justin Finnegan, a businessman living in Shanghai who worked in Beijing. “Even before the Olympic decision they’ve been bashing stuff down in an effort to modernise. People aren't being compensated enough or getting enough advance notice. Maybe the saddest part is that many of the places they’re destroying were a lot of hutong (traditional Chinese lanes and alleyways). So the city is losing a lot of its culture.”

Demolition usually comes with only a few days notice, and sometimes none at all. If they're lucky, people come home and find the character chai painted on their front door, meaning demolish. If not, the house is already gone.

In March, Human Rights Watch reported: “Chinese citizens lack any real property rights. When people present their cases to courts, judges are usually corrupted by party officials and developers. Sometimes homes will have already been destroyed by the time a judge makes a decision to even hear the case. There have been complaints of violent evictions by thugs or construction crews injuring or even killing occupants during a demolition.”

Weitao Liu, a Beijing resident and journalist with the state run China Daily said, "We must look at the problem from both sides. Some people want to move because the hutongs do not have proper heating, plumbing, and the narrow alleyways make transportation difficult. But many don't want to leave as they like living in the traditional way and have been for decades. Some of the hutong areas have been protected, but those that have to move should be compensated."

Compensation for the newly homeless has also been a major problem. Developers are supposed to pay inhabitants the market value of their properties, but first this sum has to be given to local authorities that frequently pocket a percentage of an already undervalued recourse. Sometimes the developer unilaterally decides the compensation.

“It’s going to be one of the biggest examples of a totalitarian regime taking away people’s possessions in the name of self-glorification,” said the Independent’s Olympic correspondent Daniel Howden. “Not only that, but it’s going to leave the country’s economy even worse off than it was. It will make Athens’ current bankruptcy look like a small bump in the road.”

Reports are coming in that estimate the games will cost China $20bn, making it the most expensive Olympics ever. The Chinese government has put the price tag at $1.608bn with an expected revenue of $1.625bn, netting the country a modest $17mn dollar profit. Yet officials from the University of North Carolina’s business school, hired by China to help the country prepare for the games, estimate that logistics and planning alone would cost $5bn dollars.

Remarkably, for a country with little free speech, the protests are getting louder. Evicted people have been lighting themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, and petitions and anonymous internet protests have been multiplying. Despite the imprisonment of Ye Guozhu – a housing rights activist who was imprisoned after applying for permission to hold a mass protest against the forced evictions – there are some flickers of progress. The government has issued a series of promises and reforms.

The first reform was a vague promise of more private property ownership, the next a statement condemning violence during evictions, and the most recent was the promise to develop an effective eviction hearing process.

But will they make any difference?

All are welcome reforms, but since they have not yet been put into legislation, it’s doubtful that much can be immediately done for the thousands of Chinese rendered homeless by the Olympic Games.

w.s.anderson@city.ac.uk

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