In 1964, the People's Republic of China made her first appearance in the Olympic Games, during the Maoist administration of Jiang Qing. Her intent, with the allowance of Chinese athletes to compete, was to show the world the supremacy of the People's Republic. China was humiliated in her first Olympic Games, performing amongst the worst in the world -- this was a small factor in damaging her domestic standing with party colleagues, even though the public was mislead and fooled into thinking China had done well.
Her successor, Aisin-Gioro Pu-yi, was a fervent advocate of continued support for the IOC, as such, China has participated in every Olympic Games since 1964; Winter and Summer.
Prior to the mid-1970s, Communist states, despite their relative "open-ness" to the Western World, were often not chosen for hosting the Olympic Games, primarily out of concerns for public safety, and general malaise over the idea of letting dictatorships host the games.
In 1976, the first Communist state to host the Olympics became Czechoslovakia, who hosted the Summer games in their capital city of Praha. The event went over spectacularly, and with Moscow following in 1980, and Sarajevo in 1984, it proved that the Communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc could handle the Olympics without much in the way of brutal suppression.
The choice for 1992 boiled down to
Birmingham, United Kingdom; and Barcelona. Barcelona nearly got the nod from the IOC, but concerns arose over the general fact that Spain remained a hard-right technocratic dictatorship. Spain refused to improve their PR for their bid, and snubbed an attempt by opera singer
Monserrat Caballe to compose a song for the Barcelona bid with English talent Freddie Mercury. As a result, Birmingham's catchy jingle,
"Bring the Games to Birmingham" won the hearts of the election, and Birmingham was chosen.
However, after the Games, the city of Birmingham went into insolvency after dealing with the sheer bill of dealing with the games. However, the public was happy with the games, and nothing bad took place during it, much to the happiness of all.
1996 is often upheld as "one of the greatest examples of Chinese progress". China became the first Beijing Pact state to host an Olympic Games, and paraded the new People's Republic, and the constitution and way of life that would revolutionize China. The Olympics went over well, and western media's criticism of China's psuedo-socialist system went unheard by many governments.
Despite the Kargil War in 1999, and the Terrors of 2002, the Olympic Games have persisted strongly, and have refused to kowtow to terror and chaos. The Olympic Games plan to play on as normal, but many venue states have stepped up security in anticipation of problems that may arise from daring demagogues...
